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.
Bernard Pears pear, but contrary to what some believe, there is no William Pear in our lineage." In 1952, together with his son Clive Pears, he founded the William Pears Group. Bernard Pears Bernard Pears was an Austrian-born British businessman, and the founder of the William Pears Group, one of Britain's largest property companies. He was born Bernard Schleicher, and emigrated from Austria to Hackney, London, and changed his surname to Pears. The change of surname took place on 8 November 1939, and he gave his address as 180 Fore Street, Edmonton, London. Pears started a greengrocer business in north London, which