Lt Col(Weetman) John Churchill Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray (27 February 1910 - 19 January 1995) TDDL was a British peer, businessman and polo player.
Early life
Weetman John Churchill Pearson and his twin sister, Angela was born on 27 February 1910 in Whitehall.[1][2] They had four sisters.
Pearson fought in the Second World War, and his left arm was amputated as a result. He received the Territorial Decoration for his service. He attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel from 1940 to 1941 in the British Home Guard.
He served as chairman of S. Pearson & Son Ltd from 1954 to 1977, and as president of Pearson PLC from 1983 to 1995.[2]
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).[3]
He was the main driving force for the revival of polo in England after the Second World War.[4] He played polo despite having lost his arm at Dunkirk. He had an artificial limb fitted so he could continue to play.[5]
In 1948 or 1949, he played with the English team in the Argentinian Open.[4] 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.[5]
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. They also had three children:
