Swarfega was invented in 1947 by Audley Bowdler Williamson (28 February 1916 - 21 November 2004), an industrial chemist from Heanor, Derbyshire.[1][2] In 1941 he had founded a detergent-sales company, Deb Silkware Protection Ltd., based in Belper, to produce a formulation for extending the life of silk stockings.[3] The name derived from "debutante",[1] to signify the newness of the company and its products. The introduction of nylon stockings threatened to render it superfluous; however, Williamson purportedly suggested that mechanics had already found it useful for cleaning their hands. This may have been a myth encouraged to attract interest, but the product was reformulated and marketed as Swarfega, becoming the company's main product.