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.
Mark Pears in 1952, by his grandfather Bernard Pears (who changed his name from Schleicher on emigrating from Austria) and his father Clive Pears, and is run by Mark Pears with his younger brothers Trevor and David. Mark Pears has run the company since his father died in 1984, when he was aged 21. According to "The Daily Telegraph", Pears won't allow his photo to be taken, or say which of the 212 companies of which he is a director, a "complex labyrinth of operating and investment companies", is the main holding company or what the group's annual profit might be. In