Yorkshire in Mexico: The Pearson/Cowdray Legacy at the University of Leeds

An opportunity to see an exhibition of rare photographs and film depicting the business activities of Weetman Pearson (Viscount Cowdray) in Mexico between 1889 and 1919.

11th October 2011, 5:30PM

Parkinson Court, University of Leeds

Between 1889 and 1919, Yorkshire businessman and politician Weetman Pearson (Lord Cowdray after 1910) became one of the world's most important engineering contractors, a pioneer in the international oil industry, and one of Britains wealthiest men. At the centre of his global business empire were his interests in Mexico.

While Pearson's extraordinary success in Mexico took place within the context of unprecedented levels of British trade with and investment in Latin America, Pearson was less an agent of British imperialism than an agent of Mexican state building and modernization.

Pearson was able to secure contracts for some of nineteenth-century Mexico's most important public works projects in large part because of his reliability, his empathy with the developmentalist project of Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, and his cultivation of a clientelist network within the Mexican political elite.

His success thus provides an opportunity to reappraise the role played by overseas interests in the national development of Mexico.

A bequest from Lord Cowdray in 1916 led to the establishment of the Cowdray Chair of Spanish at the University of Leeds

This exhibition is organised by the current Cowdray Professor, Paul Garner, the author of 'British Lions and Mexican Eagles: Business, Politics and Empire in the Career of Weetman Pearson in Mexico 1889-1919' (Stanford University Press, 2011).

The rare photographs and film presented in this exhibition show the extent and range of Pearson's business enterprises over a period of 30 years.