High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Weetman Dickinson Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray GCVO (15 July 1856 ? 1 May 1927) was an engineer, oil industrialist, and owner of the Pearson conglomerate. He was born on 15 July 1856 at Shelley, Woodhouse, Yorkshire, the son of George Pearson and Sarah Weetman Dickinson. The Pearson firm, started by his grandfather Samuel in 1844 and today known as a publishing house, initially focused on construction. He took over the company in 1880, eventually moving the headquarters from Yorkshire to London. An early proponent of globalization, he built the Dover harbour, docks in Halifax, railroads and harbors around the world, and the Sennar Dam in Sudan.