ONE of Colchester’s most famous benefactors left a £4million fortune when he died in the Twenties, documents newly published online reveal.

Lord Cowdray played a leading role in shaping the modern-day town centre when he bought the land to create Colchester Castle Park after the First World War.

His will – listed on a family tree website which yesterday released details of six million historic testaments – reveals the town’s former Liberal MP was well able to afford such generosity.

The engineer and oil industrialist left the equivalent of £179.5million in today’s money, having amassed huge wealth by building harbours, docks and railways all over the world.

Were he around today to help out Colchester through his philanthropy, he would be able to pay the bill for the controversial Firstsite art gallery five times over. He could also easily afford to commemorate the town’s former Roman chariot racing circus with a lifesize model – and would still have millions left to spend on a galaxy of stars for Colchester United.

Colchester historian Andrew Phillips said: “Most of the well-known Colchester figures from that period of history would have left about £20,000 or so.

“Lord Cowdray was the exception. Someone like James Paxman, who founded the Paxman factory and died in 1922, would have been seriously wealthy by the standards of the time, but still not in Cowdray’s league.”

First Viscount Cowdray was born Weetman Dickinson Pearson, in 1856, in Yorkshire.

In 1880, he took over the Pearson firm, started by his grandfather Samuel in 1844, and went on to oversee a series of massive construction projects.

He built a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific in Mexico in 1889 and, while laying track, his crew chanced upon one of the world’s biggest oil fields.

Cowdray created the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company to process the oil and made millions before selling in 1919.

He was elected as Colchester’s MP in the 1895 general election and kept the seat until 1910, when he became a baron.

He created Castle Park as a memorial to town soldiers who died in the war, allowing the castle to be opened to the public for the first time. He died in 1927.

His name lives on, as Cowdray Avenue and the nearby Cowdray Centre are both named after him.

Lord Cowdray’s will is published on ancestry.co.uk The site, which charges a subscription fee, allows family history enthusiasts to search for details of their ancestors bequests, as well as their marriage certificates and other records.