William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme a painting by Edmund Leighton. Lever's rival in the soap industry, A & F Pears, had taken the lead in using art for marketing by buying paintings such as "Bubbles" by John Everett Millais to promote its products. Lever's response was to acquire similarly illustrative works, and he later bought 'The New Frock' by William Powell Frith to promote the Sunlight soap brand. In 1922 he founded the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight in Cheshire which he dedicated to his late wife Elizabeth. William Lever was born on 19 September 1851 at 16 Wood Street, Bolton, Lancashire, England.
William Pears Group William Pears Group William Pears Group is one of Britain's largest property companies, with £6 billion of property in London and south-east England. The William Pears Group was founded in 1952, by Bernard Pears (who changed his name from Schleicher on emigrating from Austria) and his son Clive Pears. It is run by Mark Pears with his younger brothers Trevor and David. According to "The Daily Telegraph", Mark Pears is a director of 212 companies, a "complex labyrinth of operating and investment companies", but won't say which is the main holding company or what the group's annual profit is. William