Lt Col Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

(Weetman) John Churchill Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray (27 February 1910 - 19 January 1995) was a British peer, businessman and

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

player.

Early life

Weetman John Churchill Pearson was born on 27 February 1910.The Peerage
/ref>George Nugent

''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 21 January 1995 His father was

Harold Pearson, 2nd Viscount Cowdray Weetman Harold Miller Pearson, 2nd Viscount Cowdray, (18 April 1882 – 5 October 1933), styled The Honourable Harold Pearson between 1910 and 1927, was a British peer and Liberal Party politician. Background Cowdray was the son of Weetman Dic ...

(1882–1933). His paternal grandfather was

Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray Weetman Dickinson Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, (15 July 1856 – 1 May 1927), known as Sir Weetman Pearson, Bt between 1894 and 1910, and as Lord Cowdray between 1910 and 1917, was a British engineer, oil industrialist, benefactor and Libe ...

(1856–1927). His mother was Agnes Beryl Spencer-Churchill (1881–1948). His maternal great-grandfather was

George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough (27 December 1793 – 1 July 1857), styled Earl of Sunderland until 1817 and Marquess of Blandford between 1817 and 1840, was a British nobleman, politician, and peer. The great-grandfather of S ...

(1793–1857). He attended

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

and graduated from

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

. He resided in Cowdray Park in

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

Career

Military career

He fought in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and his left arm was amputated as a result. He received the

Territorial Decoration __NOTOC__ The Territorial Decoration (TD) was a military medal of the United Kingdom awarded for long service in the Territorial Force and its successor, the Territorial Army. This award superseded the Volunteer Officer's Decoration when the Te ...

(TD) for his service. He attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel from 1940 to 1941 in the

British Home Guard The Home Guard (initially Local Defence Volunteers or LDV) was an armed citizen militia supporting the British Army during the Second World War. Operational from 1940 to 1944, the Home Guard had 1.5 million local volunteers otherwise ineligible f ...

. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the

Under-Secretary of State for Air The Under-Secretary of State for Air was a junior ministerial post in the United Kingdom Government, supporting the Secretary of State for Air in his role of managing the Royal Air Force. It was established on 10 January 1919, replacing the previou ...

Harold Balfour, 1st Baron Balfour of Inchrye Harold Harington Balfour, 1st Baron Balfour of Inchrye, (1 November 1897 – 21 September 1988), was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom, and a flying ace of the First World War. As Under-Secretary of State for Air in 1944 he ...

, from 1941 to 1942.

Deputy Lord Lieutenant

He served as Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

in 1945, during the tenure of

Charles Wyndham, 3rd Baron Leconfield Charles Henry Wyndham, 3rd Baron Leconfield, (17 February 1872 – 16 April 1952) was a British peer, army officer and political figure. He succeeded his father as third Baron Leconfield in 1901. Ancestry Wyndham was born at the family estat ...

(1872–1952) as the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, which spanned 1917 to 1949.

Business career

He served as Chairman of S. Pearson & Son Ltd from 1954 to 1977, and as President of

Pearson PLC Pearson plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s.J. A. Spende ...

from 1983 to 1995.

Polo

When he went up to Oxford he played for four years with the Oxford polo team. In 1932 he captained the Oxford team which won the Tyro Cup, then still a Hurlingham tournament (now at Cowdray). He was the main driving force for the revival of polo in England after the

.Horace A. Laffaye, ''Polo in Britain: A History'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012, p. 55 He played polo despite having lost his arm at Dunkirk. He had an artificial limb fitted so he could continue to play. In 1948 the In 1949, he played with the English team in the Argentinian Open. In 1951 he revived the Coronation Cup and in 1956 he launched his own major trophy, the Cowdray Park Gold Cup, which remains to this day the main trophy for British Open Polo. He served as Steward and Chairman of the

Hurlingham Polo Association The Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) is the governing body for polo in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and many other countries. The Federation of International Polo produces the International Rules of Polo through a coop ...

from 1947 to 1967.

Marriages and children

Cowdray married Lady Anne Bridgeman (born 12 June 1913, died 21 May 2009), a daughter of

Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford Lieutenant-Colonel Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford, DL, JP (6 October 1873 – 21 March 1957), styled Viscount Newport from 1898 to 1915, was a British peer, Conservative politician and soldier. He was a major landowner, owning up to . ...

, on 19 July 1939. They had three children: *

Hon Hon or HON may refer to: People * Han (surname) (Chinese: 韩/韓), also romanized Hon * Louis Hon (1924–2008), French footballer * Priscilla Hon (born 1998), Australian tennis player Other uses * Hon (Baltimore), a cultural stereotype of ...

Mary Teresa Pearson (born 3 June 1940) married Lionel Stopford Sackville (1932–2013), * Hon Liza Jane Pearson (born 30 March 1942), married Malcolm McNaughton * Michael Orlando Weetman Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray (born 17 June 1944) Viscount and Viscountess Cowdray divorced in 1950 and on 4 March 1953 Cowdray married Elizabeth Mather-Jackson, daughter of

Sir Anthony Mather-Jackson, 6th Baronet Sir Anthony Henry Mather-Jackson, 6th Baronet (9 November 1899 – 11 October 1983) was an English colliery owner and manufacturer. He was an all-round cricketer who played for Derbyshire from 1920 to 1927. Jackson was born in Westminster, the s ...

. They also had three children: * Hon Lucy Pearson (born 11 April 1954) * Hon Charles Anthony Pearson (born 5 March 1956) * Hon Rosanna Pearson (born 1 July 1959) Cowdray died on 19 January 1995, at the age of eighty-four. Viscountess Cowdray died on 23 September 2011.The Peerage, entry for 3rd Viscount Cowdray
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowdray, Weetman Pearson, 3rd Viscount 1910 births 1995 deaths People from Midhurst People educated at Eton College Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

Royalty and nobility with disabilities

3rd Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

English polo players English amputees Sportspeople from West Sussex 20th-century English businesspeople