New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-08-08
NEW LORD cOWDRAY
Sir Weetman Pearson DoubIy
DefieS Sunerstititon.

Copyright. 1910 by the Brentwood Company
Oh "eetrnan Pearson. the muti-million-
aire English contractor and competitor of
che Standard Oil Company who complained
that when recently in New York he was
shadowed increasingly by private detectives
IN the employ of that concern braved
superstition by selecting The title of Lord
Cowdray on his elevation TO the peerage
the other day He takes the title from
Cowdray Park, an historic place in Sussex
which he purchased from The Earl of Egg
mont last year, and which was for hun
dreds of years the home of the Browne
Nlscounts Mcntagu. Cowdray Park en-
braces some fourteen thousand acres. most
~ OF woodland. comprising a six-hundred-
acre deer park, where Queen Elizabeth
shot deer with a cressbow, and where her
brother, Edward VI. had hunted some forty
years previously. It IS one of those places
burdened with a monastic curse of fire and
water, imposed by the odtime monkish
owners on the occasion of their being
and the confiscauon of their homes by King
Henry VIII, who sold some and distributed
others among his favorites
The Browne Tiscounts Monta&u were a
most unlucky family, their history being
one long succession of fatalities, concluding
with the destruction by fire of the grand
old Tudor mansion in 1898, on the very
same day that the eighth and last of the
Browne Lords Montagu was drowned while
attempting TO shoot the falls of the Rhine
at Schafhausen. Cowdray then passed TO
Lord Montagu's only sister. the Hon. Mrs.
Potntz, who some years later lost her rea-
son witnessing the death of her two
young sons through drowning while bathing
in the sea near Bognor.
From the Pointzes Cowdray Park went to
the Egmonts, who have also been extreme
~ unlucky in every possible way, but who
rebuilt. about fifty years ago. the hall, ac-
Cording to the designs and the founda-
tons of the old Tudor mansion which had
occupied its place In fact. Cowdray Park
was always looked upon an unlucky
place and blighted with a curse until
its acquisition by Sir Weetman Pearson.
who not content with buying II, now takes
his title therefrom. Many persons will watch
the future of Lord Cowdray with Interest
with view to ascertaining what fate has
in store for one who has thus doubly defied
superstition. Lord and Lady Cowdrsy. by
the bye. are expected in this country at the
end of this month, and will proceed 10
Mexico. where they purpose TO spend the
winter
Lord Brassey's son-in-law. Freeman
Thomas who received a peerage at the
same time as Lord Cowdray. has taken the
name of Lord Wilmington of Ration. after
his place in Sussex. Sir Walter Foster, the
eminent physician, becomes Lord llkeston
of Ilkeston, in the County Of Derby: Sir
CHRISTOPHER Furness becomes Lord Fur
ness: Sir William Henry Holland Will
henceforth be known as Lord Rotterdam
of Broughton, in Lancashire. while Sir
Hudson Kearley, the multi-nillionaire rival
Of Sir Thomas Upton in the tea and
grocery business, and president of the COM
nittee governing the great port of London.
becomes Lord Davenport Of Wilmington, in
the County of Buckingham.