Dunecht

A large, curious and very imposing armorial plaque on the wall of the estate office in 1920s style. The supporters are particularly unusual they are on the dexter side a man in a diving suit, and on the sinister side a figure in sandals and a fringed poncho intended as a Mexican paeon. These are the arms of Weetman Dickinson Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray and MP ( born July 15, 1856, Shelley Woodhouse, Yorkshire, Eng. died May 1, 1927, Dunecht House, Aberdeen, Scot.) who became the sixth richest man in Britain out of the huge wealth he made from exploiting Mexico's first oil production under the dictator Porfirio Diaz. His extensive interests in Mexico, from construction of railways, dams, harbours and tunnels to mining and manufacturing, from rural estates (on the eve of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 Pearson's Mexican Estates Company controlled well over a million acres of land) to his ownership of the 'El Aguila' oil company, meant that he was so often absent from the House of Commons that he earned the nickname 'The Member for Mexico'.