Editing Pearson plc (section)

=== Civil engineering businesses 1844 to 1925 ===
In 1844 [[Samuel Pearson]] became an associate partner in a small brickmaking and contracting [[civil engineering]] company in [[Huddersfield]], [[West Yorkshire]].<ref name="IDCH"/><ref>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Garner |title=British Lions and Mexican Eagles: Business, Politics and Empire in the Career of Weetman Pearson in Mexico, 1889-1919 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wSDMDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT51 |date=2011 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=978-0804774451}}</ref> In 1856 Pearson's eldest son George entered the business, which became known as '''S. Pearson & Son''', "sanitary tube and brickmakers and contractors for local [[public works]] in and around [[Bradford]]".<ref name="IDCH"/> In 1880, control passed to Samuel's grandson [[Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray|Weetman Dickinson Pearson]] (later 1st Viscount Cowdray), an engineer, who in 1890 moved the business to London and turned it into one of the world's largest construction companies.<ref name="history">{{cite web |url=http://www.pearson.com/about-us/our-history.html |title=Our History |website=pearson.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131015023257/http://www.pearson.com/about-us/our-history.html |archive-date=15 October 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Another of its prominent engineers was [[Ernest William Moir]] who, after working for Pearson on tunnels in [[New York City]], became the contractor's agent on construction of the [[Blackwall Tunnel]] under the River Thames in London between 1892 and 1897.<ref name="Blackwall">{{cite web |url=http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=1345 |title=Engineering Timelines – Blackwall Road Tunnel, northbound |website=engineering-timelines.com}}</ref><ref name="History">{{cite web |url=https://greenwichpeninsulahistory.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/centenary-of-the-opening-of-the-blackwall-tunnel/ |title=Centenary of the opening of the Blackwall Tunnel |website=greenwichpeninsulahistory.wordpress.com |publisher=Greenwich Peninsula History |date=30 July 2013}}</ref><ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46543 "Southern Blackwall: The Blackwall Tunnel", Survey of London - volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 640–645], accessed 17 March 2013.</ref>

Between 1880 and 1902 the company also built the Admiralty Harbour at [[Dover]], the [[City of Halifax|Halifax]] Dry Dock in Canada, the [[East River Tunnels|East River Railway Tunnels]] in [[New York City]], the Mexican Grand Canal that drained [[Mexico City]], the [[Ferrocarril Transístmico|Tehuantepec Railway]] in [[Mexico]], and railways and harbours around the world.<ref>{{cite web |title=Weetman Dickinson Pearson |url=https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Weetman_Dickinson_Pearson |website=gracesguide.co.uk |publisher=Grace's Guide To British Industrial History}}</ref><ref name="fundinguniverse">{{cite web |url=http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/pearson-plc-history/ |title=Pearson plc History |website=fundinguniverse.com |access-date=26 March 2016}}</ref><ref name="IDCH"/>

In November 1915, the firm began construction of [[HM Factory, Gretna]], the largest [[cordite]] factory in the UK during [[World War I]].<ref name="s">[[J. A. Spender]], ''Weetman Pearson - First Viscount Cowdray'', (London, [[Cassell (publisher)|Cassell and Company]], 1930).</ref>

The construction business was shut down in the 1920s.<ref name="fundinguniverse"/><ref name="IDCH"/> Its final projects included construction of the [[Silent Valley Reservoir]] in Northern Ireland (contract awarded in 1923),<ref name="BBCPt2">{{cite web |title=A Century of Water from the Mournes - Part 2 - A concise history - The Silent Valley Reservoir - 1910–1933 |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/down/A1068527.shtml |access-date=25 June 2020 |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=16 October 2014}}</ref> and completion of the [[Sennar Dam]], in Sudan, in 1925.<ref name="Engineer">"The Sennar Dam and the Gezira Irrigation Scheme", ''[http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/a/a2/Er19240926.pdf The Engineer]'' {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150104190643/http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/a/a2/Er19240926.pdf |date=4 January 2015}}</ref>