The Graphic Newspaper/Magazine June 1st 1897, Queens Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Advertisement for Brookes soap. Monkey Brand soap was introduced in the 1880s as a household scouring and polishing soap, in cake/bar form.[1] A firm owned by Sidney and Henry Gross, had produced and sold the soap in Philadelphia, USA. The soap's highly abrasive[2] agent was pumice.[3] Lever Brothers bought the company in 1899[4] and transferred the production of Monkey Brand soap to Port Sunlight. The name ????Benjamin Brooke' (hence Brooke's Monkey Brand) was used to promote the Monkey Brand soap both in the States and in Britain.