Joseph Berwick

Worcester draper and banker, founder of Berwick & Co., also known as the Worcester Old Bank, a predecessor of Lloyds (q.v., under Berwick, Lechmere & Co.). Father-in-law of Sir Anthony Lechmere (q.v.), who became a partner in the bank. Mortgagee of an estate in the Virgin Islands belonging to the Nibbs family.

1. Joseph Berwick's first wife Rebecca was the daughter of Hon. John Pickering (governor of Tortola in 1741), making Joseph Berwick the brother-in-law of Isaac Pickering of Fox Lease (q.v.). His English residence was Hallow Park in Worcestershire, from at least 1790. He may have been the one responsible for the building of the new manor house at Hallow Park in the late 1790s. Joseph and Rebecca's daughter Mary Berwick married Anthony Lechmere in Hanley Castle, Worcestershire,15/05/1787.

2. Joseph remarried, to Anne Rogers, daughter of John Rogers (d. 1760) of Uckington, Gloucestershire, in 1780. It was through this marriage that Uckington manor passed into the hands of Anthony Lechmere.

3. Will of Joseph Berwick of Worcester Worcestershire [made in 1783] was proved 18/12/1798. In the will he left £12,000 to his wife with the proviso that it be placed in trust if she should have a child by him; he said he had settled on his daughter Mary Berwick £7000, and he left a further £3000 in trust for her to bring her fortune up to £10,000. The executors were his brother Thomas Berwick of Stroud Gloucestershire and Isaac Pickering of Rockley near Marlborough.

1. The Present Baronetage of the United Kingdom for the Year 1821 (London, 1821), p. 125; Charles Francis Jenkins, Tortola : a Quaker experiment of long ago in the tropics pp. 26, 43, 75; Gloucestershire Archives D214/F1/98, 'Joseph Berwick, Hallow Park; ordering carp for stocking his pools', 02/05/1790; for the new manor house see http://hallowhistory.blogspot.com/p/hallow-manor.html [accessed 06/12/2018]; Findmypast.co.uk, England Marriages 1538-1973 [database online].

2. William Page, The Victoria History of the County of Gloucester vol. 8 (1968), p. 52.

3. PROB 11/1315/273.

We are grateful to Jacqueline Pearson for her assistance with compiling this entry.