¹ C. Reed, “History of S. P & S.'s [S. Pearson & Son, Ltd.] Oil Interests in Mexico, S.A.,” unpublished MS, S. Pearson & Son Ltd. records. The Pearson Historical Records (hereafter PHR) are held at the Science Museum Library, Imperial College, South Kensington, London. The unpublished history can be found at PHR, ARCH: PEAR, box C43, file LCO 23/3. Shell actually acquired only 35 percent of Mexican Eagle shares, but it bought the right to managerial control. See Jones, Geoffrey, The State and the Emergence of the British Oil Industry (London, 1981), 217–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Pearson's activities in another Latin American country, See Bucheli, Marcelo, “Negotiating under the Monroe Doctrine: Weetman Pearson and the Origins of U.S. Control of Colombian Oil,” Business History Review 82, no. 3 (Autumn 2008): 529–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Jeremy, David J., “Weetman Dickinson Pearson,” in Dictionary of Business Biography, vol. 4, ed. Jeremy, David (London, 1985), 582–94Google Scholar ; and , Jones, British Oil Industry, 74Google Scholar , 65. Also See Jones, Geoffrey, “Pearson, Weetman Dickinson, first Viscount Cowdray (1856–1927),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar.

³ See Davenport-Hines, R. P. T., Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior (Cambridge, 1984), ch. 10Google Scholar ; Corley, T. A. B., A History of the Burmah Oil Company, 1886–1924 (London, 1983)Google Scholar , ch. 16; also See O'Hagan, Henry Osborne, Leaves from My Life, 2 vols. (London, 1929)Google Scholar (our thanks to Les Hannah for this reference).

⁴ It is noteworthy, for instance, that none of Pearson's companies figure on any of the principal listings of prominent British businesses during the period. For example, both Wardley, Peter, “The Anatomy of Big Business: Aspects of Corporate Development in the Twentieth Century,” Business History 33, no. 2 (1991): 268–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar , Appendix B, include other overseas-based businesses but omit Pearson. Other well-known lists tend to fo- cus on British-based businesses or on British-based employment, and so Pearson's busi- nesses would not figure anyway. For example, See Hannah, Leslie and Kay, John, Concentration in Modern Industry (London, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Nicholas, Tom, “Enterprise and Management,” in Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, vol. 2, Economic Maturity, 1860–1939, ed. Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul (Cambridge, 2003), 252.Google Scholar

⁶ Flagged by Hannah, Leslie, “Visible and Invisible Hands in Great Britain,” in Managerial Hierarchies: Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of Modern Industrial Enterprise, ed. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Daems, Herman (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 40Google Scholar (oil), 51 (food), 57–58 (overseas investments), 58 (raw materials), 62–63 (overseas markets), and developed by Cain, P. J. and Hopkins, A. G., in British Imperialism: Innovations and Expansion, 1688–1914 (London, 1993)Google Scholar , but most clearly elucidated by Jones, Geoffrey, “British Multinationals and British Business since 1850,” in Business Enterprise in Modern Britain: From the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Kirby, Maurice W. and Rose, Mary B. (London, 1994)Google Scholar ; and Godley, Andrew and Casson, Mark, “Britain, 1900–2000,” in The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Mesopotamia to Modern Times, ed. Landes, David S., Mokyr, Joel, and Baumol, William J. (Princeton, 2010), 243–72Google Scholar. A survey of the traditional debate appears in Godley, Andrew, Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship in London and New York: Enterprise and Culture (Basingstoke, 2001), ch. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Hannah, Leslie, “The Divorce of Ownership from Control from 1900: Re-calibrating Imagined Global Historical Trends,” Business History 49, no. 3 (Oct. 2007): Table 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Edelstein, Michael, “Foreign Investment, Accumulation and Empire,” in Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, vol. 2, ed. Floud, Roderick and Johnson, Paul (Cambridge, 2003), 190–226Google Scholar ; Dunning, John, “Changes in the Level and Structure of International Production Over the Last 100 Years,” in The Growth of International Business, ed. Casson, Mark (London, 1983)Google Scholar ; Corley, Tony, “Britain's Overseas Investments in 1914 Revisited,” Business History 36, no. 1 (1994): 71–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Jones, Geoffrey, The Evolution of International Business: An Introduction (London, 1996): 30–33Google Scholar , and Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar , ch. 2; Wilkins, Mira and Schräter, Harm, eds., The Free Standing Company in the World Economy, 1830–1996 (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar , and , Corley, “British Overseas Investments.”Google Scholar

¹⁰ Matthews, R. C. O., Feinstein, C. H., and Odling-Smee, J. C., British Economic Growth, 1856–1973 (Stanford, 1982), 163–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar , show that domestic profits were falling while overseas profits were rising. , Jones, in “British Multinationals and British Business,”Google Scholar emphasizes the diversity of financial outcomes, 188.

¹¹ Ferrier, R. W., The History of the British Petroleum Company, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1982), 158–201Google Scholar ; , Jones, British Oil Industry, ch. 5Google Scholar ; Corley, Burmah. , Jones, “British Multinationals and British Business,” 186Google Scholar , on the contribution of the Anglo-Persian holding to Burmah's market valuation; and Chandler, Scale and Scope, Appendix B1 for values (1919 exchange rate of $4.43 to £1 is from Officer, Lawrence H., “What Is Its Relative Value in U.K. Pounds?” Economic History Services, 30 Oct. 2006)Google Scholar.

¹² Hannah, Leslie, “Marshall's ‘Trees’ and the Global ‘Forest’: Were the ‘Giant Redwoods’ Different?” in Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries, ed. Lamoreaux, Naomi, Raff, Dan, and Temin, Peter (Chicago, 1995)Google Scholar , estimates Royal Dutch–Shell to have had a combined value of $187 million and Jersey Standard $390 million in 1912, Table 7A.1.

¹³ There are three suspiciously adulatory biographies of Pearson, from which this section is drawn: Spender, J. A., Weetman Pearson: First Viscount Cowdray, 1856–1927 (London, 1930), 11Google Scholar ; Young, Desmond, Member for Mexico: A Biography of Weetman Pearson, First Viscount Cowdray (London, 1966), 6–7Google Scholar ; and Middlemas, Robert Keith, The Master Builders: Thomas Brassey; Sir John Aird; Lord Cowdray; Sir John Norton-Griffiths (London, 1963), 168Google Scholar.

¹⁴ , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 18Google Scholar , and Appendix 1; Connolly, Priscilla, “Pearson and Public Works Construction in Mexico, 1890–1910,” Business History 41, no. 4 (1999): 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ , Middlemas, Master Builders, 171Google Scholar ; , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,”Google Scholar on changes to the international contracting industry, and Connolly, Priscilla, El Contratista de Don Porfirio: Obras publicas, deuda y desarrollo desigual (Mexico, 1997), 261Google Scholar.

¹⁶ , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 53.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Haber, Stephen, Razo, Armando, and Maurer, Noel, The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876–1929 (Cambridge, 2003), 194n11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 42–43.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Haber, Stephen, Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890–1940 (Stanford, 1989), 18–19.Google Scholar

²⁰ , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 57–58.Google Scholar

²¹ , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 56, 84–86.Google Scholar

²² , Connolly, El Contratista, 234–35Google Scholar , our translation (literally “a moral boost” rather than “confidence boost.” Compare with Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 58).

²³ Even then, British bond holders insisted on a steep discount; , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 58Google Scholar. On credit-rationing theory in a business history context, See Godley, Andrew and Ross, Duncan, “Banks, Networks and Small Firm Finance,” Business History 38, no. 3 (1996): 1–10 and references thereCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 66.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., esp. Table 2. Also See , Young, Member for Mexico, 81–100Google Scholar ; , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 101–11Google Scholar.

²⁶ , Connolly, El Contratista, 337–40Google Scholar. Other reasons thought to be in his favor were his allegedly “special relationship” with the president and his competence and skills in labor management ( , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 57Google Scholar , 60–63); , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 102Google Scholar ; Brown, Jonathan C., Oil and Revolution in Mexico (Berkeley, 1993), 47–53Google Scholar , emphasizes his ability to gain financial resources from London banks. Connolly also speculates about Pearson's role in supporting the Mexican regime by canvassing for British diplomatic support during a border dispute with Guatemala (El Contratista, 340–41). Unlike the case of the Gran Canal contract, there is no extant evidence to explain why he was awarded the Veracruz contract.

²⁷ , Connolly, El Contratista, 374–76Google Scholar ; Gauld, Charles A., The Last Titan: Percival Farquhar, American Entrepreneur in Latin America (Stanford, 1964), 55Google Scholar ; and Liehr, Reinhard and Bautista, Mariano Torres, “British Free Standing Companies in Mexico, 1884–1911,” in Free Standing Company, ed. Wilkins, and Schräter, , on F. S. Pearson and Mexico Light & PowerGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ , Haber, , Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 29–40.Google Scholar

²⁹ See , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 61Google Scholar , on the need for foreign contractors for the Canal project. She also states that Mexican engineers “had no previous experience of harbour dredging,” (p. 66), so foreign contractors were preferred for the Vera Cruz project . , Haber, Industry, 30Google Scholar , emphasizes that Mexico was dependent on foreign technology and technicians for its railroad design and construction because there was a lack of domestic engineering expertise.

³⁰ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 50Google Scholar (the currency symbol has been omitted, so it is not clear whether it is $US or $Mexican—either way, it was a lot).

³¹ , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 62Google Scholar ; Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 48Google Scholar , listing some of the politicians who were multiple board members, including Porfirio Jr. (also 197n21) . , Connolly, El Contratista, 12Google Scholar , on Diaz's wife's family benefiting from Pearson's acquisition of large land holdings around Veracruz. In 1895, Pearson also offered seemingly generous terms to a group of politicians who owned bonded warehouses. See Mexican Yearbook, 1908. Our thanks to one of the referees for this reference.

³² , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 57Google Scholar ; Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, ch. 6Google Scholar , for their revisionist perspective. Americans had become resentful of Pearson's privileged position with the Díaz regime. Henry Clay Pierce, one of his main rivals (see below), campaigned relentlessly against Pearson in the press. See , Jones, British Oil Industry, 67Google Scholar ; and , Brown, Oil, 54–55, 64, and 173–76Google Scholar. As domestic opposition to the regime grew, so did anti-Pearson sentiments and rumors, which persisted after 1911.

³³ Jones, “Pearson.” He was the Liberal MP for Colchester from February 1895 to 1910. According to Jones, his political career was distinguished by his not having made a single speech in the Commons. He joined the House of Lords as Baron Cowdray of Midhurst in July 1910.

³⁴ , Connolly, “Pearson and Public Works,” 58n, and 57Google Scholar on the profit margins for harbor dredging.

³⁵ , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 121–22Google Scholar ; , Young, Member for Mexico, 110Google Scholar. Pearson spent several months in Mexico on the project each year for eight consecutive years. His frequent absences from the House of Commons led to him being nicknamed the “Member for Mexico.”

³⁶ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 190–98Google Scholar ; , Brown, Oil, 9–10Google Scholar , 25– 27. Doheny later reorganized his holdings into the Mexican Petroleum Company.

³⁷ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics and Property Rights, 199, Table 6.1.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid., 198 . , Jones, British Oil Industry, 68Google Scholar. , Jeremy, “Weetman Dickinson Pearson,” 590Google Scholar.

³⁹ , Brown, Oil, 15, 51.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ As quoted in , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 149Google Scholar. J. B. Body ran the firm's headquarters in Mexico City and continued as a director of Mexican Eagle after the Shell acquisition.

⁴¹ Ibid., 149–50.

⁴² , Middlemas, Master Builders, 211Google Scholar ; , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 122–23Google Scholar.

⁴³ , Middlemas, Master Builders, 214.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 156Google Scholar ; , Jeremy, “Weetman Dickinson Pearson,” 589Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ As quoted in , Spender, Weetman Pearson, 155.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ , Middlemas, Master Builders, 216.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ , Jeremy, “Weetman Dickinson Pearson,” 589Google Scholar ; , Middlemas, Master Builders, 218–19Google Scholar ; , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 7Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ , Middlemas, Master Builders, 220Google Scholar. Also See , Reed, “History of S. P & S.”Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics and Property Rights, 216.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 5.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Brown, Jonathan, “The Structure of the Foreign-Owned Petroleum Industry in Mexico, 1880–1938,” in The Mexican Petroleum Industry in the Twentieth Century, ed. Brown, Jonathan and Knight, Alan (Austin, 1992), 7Google Scholar ; 55. Perhaps, most important from the Mexican government's perspective, this incorporation thwarted the threat of Standard Oil.

⁵² Hannah, “Divorce of Ownership,” states that the listing rule in London was that “in any public issue at least two-thirds of any security should be placed in the hands of the public,” 20. Overseas registered companies with a secondary listing on the London stock exchange could avoid the otherwise mandatory compliance with these regulations.

⁵³ , Middlemas, Master Builders, 219Google Scholar. Ten of the tankers could carry 15,000 tons, the largest oil-tank capacity then available.

⁵⁴ Citation from , Jones, British Oil Industry, 70Google Scholar. Also See , Jeremy, “Weetman Dickinson Pearson,” 589Google Scholar ; , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 7Google Scholar. Pearson had originally planned to market his oil through Bowrings, but then acquired that company and expanded it into Anglo-Mexican.

⁵⁵ See, for example, Arnold, A. J., “Corporate Financial Disclosures in the U.K., 1900–24,” Accounting Business & Financial History 7, no. 2 (1997): 143–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar , especially, 161, 165. See , Hannah, “Divorce of Ownership,” on comparative patterns of disclosureGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁶ , Wardley, “Anatomy of Big Business,” 275–77Google Scholar ; and , Hannah, “Divorce of Ownership.”Google Scholar For a general discussion, See , Hannah and , Kay, Concentration in Modern Industry, ch. 4 and appendixGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Stock Exchange Year Book, 1915 and 1919.

⁵⁸ , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 6Google Scholar , 9, and , Connolly, El Contratista, 12Google Scholar , corroborate the £5 million figure invested in Mexican Eagle before 1919.

⁵⁹ , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 9.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Schmitz, Christopher, “The World's Largest Industrial Companies of 1912,” Business History 37, no. 4 (1995): 85–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hannah, “Marshall's ‘Trees,’ ” Table 7A.1, lists Mexican Eagle (as a Mexican firm) valued at $50 million in 1912, making it the eighth-largest oil firm in the world.

⁶¹ , Wardley, “Anatomy of Big Business,” 278, Table 3.Google Scholar

⁶² Using the GDP deflator, Officer, Lawrence H., “What Is Its Relative Value in U.K. Pounds?” Economic History Services, 30 Oct. 2004Google Scholar.

⁶³ Stock Exchange Official Intelligence, 1920. This exactly follows the methodologies in Wardley, “Anatomy,” and Schmitz, “Largest.”

⁶⁴ Its ordinary shares were not listed, so this may still conceal some undervaluation. The market value of the preference shares (£2.238 million) has replaced their par value and has been added to the existing reserves in the balance sheet to give the £3.9 million figure in Table 1.

⁶⁵ In fact, prior to December 1918, S. Pearson's & Son had a market listing, but only the debentures (all of which were repaid by 1918) were quoted in the official list. The Stock Exchange Year Book states repeatedly that “reports are not obtainable, as all the share capital is privately held.” Stock Exchange Official Intelligence, 1919.

⁶⁶ , Chandler, Scale and Scope, 669.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ , Chandler, Scale and ScopeGoogle Scholar , Appendix B.1. Chandler simply states that his values were “based on the market value of shares for the years 1919… in the Stock Exchange Daily Official List,” Scale and Scope, 631. He does not explicitly state his valuation methodology. We note that the nonoil companies on his list are from Hannah and Kay, Concentration, whose method we have followed. For the purpose of comparison, note that Haber, Razo, and Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, state that Pearson and Doheny together enjoyed a 61 percent share in 1918 (198n24). If their shares were roughly equal, and Pearson alone had 30 percent, this would represent a firm output of around 26 million barrels out of the 1919 Mexican industry output of 87 million barrels . , Corley, Burmah, appendix, 320–21Google Scholar , states that Burmah's crude-oil production was 6.4 million in 1914, rising to 6.9 million in both 1918 and 1919, and peaking at 7.0 million in 1921.

⁶⁸ Chandler also omitted several other major overseas-based British industrial enterprises, for example, Rio Tinto and Consolidated Goldfields, the secondand fifth-largest industrial enterprises, respectively, in , Wardley, “Anatomy,” for 1904–1905Google Scholar. Other possible omissions include Sir John Ellerman's shipping business and Wernher Beit and the other “Randlords”. See Rubinstein, W. D., Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain since the Industrial Revolution, 2nd ed. (London, 2006), 60–61Google Scholar , 218–19, for example.

⁶⁹ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, 228–34Google Scholar ; , Connolly, El Contratista, 12Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Haber, Razo, and , Maurer, Politics of Property Rights, Tables 6.10 and 6.11, and discussion, 232–34.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid., ch. 6 . , Haber, Industry, 152Google Scholar , describes the precipitous decline in oil output in the 1920s.

⁷² Katz, Friedrich, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar ; and Meyer, Lorenzo, Mexico and the United States in the Oil Controversy, 1917–1942 (Austin, 1977)Google Scholar.

⁷³ , Brown, Oil, 55, 173–76.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ This was complicated by the fact that Pearson was himself a member of the government in 1917: he was appointed by Lloyd George as president of the Air Board in January. He resigned in November 1917.

⁷⁵ , Read, “History of S. P & S.,” 11–12Google Scholar. Deterding had already constructed the global oligopoly with Jersey Standard and Anglo-Persian by then, so presumably he felt little cause for concern in representing a non-American interest in Mexico.

⁷⁶ , Jones, British Oil Industry, 65Google Scholar , on “Pearson luck.”

⁷⁷ Deterding's comment reported in , Reed, “History of S. P & S.,” 11Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ , Jones, “British Multinationals and British Business,” 202.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Ibid. In which case Chandler and Daems seem overly dismissive of holding companies, in “Introduction,” Managerial Hierarchies, 4.