William Berners (10 July 1709 - 13 September 1783) was an English property developer and slave owner in the 18th century. He is particularly associated with the development of the

Fitzrovia Fitzrovia ( ) is a district of central London, England, near the West End. Its eastern part is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urbanised in ...

area north of

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

in central

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

;

Berners Street Berners Street is a thoroughfare located to the north of Oxford Street in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, originally developed as a residential street in the mid-18th century by property developer William Berners (property d ...

was named after him.

Life

William Berners was born in 1709, a son of William Berners and Elizabeth Rawworth, in

Much Hadham Much Hadham, formerly known as Great Hadham, is a village and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England. The parish of Much Hadham contains the hamlets of Perry Green and Green Tye, as well as the village of Muc ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

. William Berners snr was a grandson of Josias Berners, a

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

resident and lawyer who had interests in the

New River Company The New River Company, formally The Governor and Company of the New River brought from Chadwell and Amwell to London, was a privately-owned water supply company in London, England, originally formed around 1609 and incorporated in 1619 by roy ...

and bought land in a district then known as Newlands west of the City of London. Josias' son James and William snr (who died in 1712, when William jnr was an infant) undertook some development of the area during the late 17th century. Once William Berners came of age, he was able to start developing land which had hitherto been used for gardening. In 1738 he made an agreement with a Thomas Huddle to develop an area measuring 655 ft long by 100 ft deep fronting on to

. Initially, three streets -

Newman Newman is a surname of Germanic Anglo-Saxon origins. Newman is the modern English form of the name used in Great Britain and among people of British ancestry around the world (as is 'Numan'), while Neumann (with variant spellings) is used in Ger ...

, Berners and

Wells Street Wells Street is a street in the City of Westminster. It runs from Riding House Street in the north to Oxford Street in the south. It is crossed by Mortimer Street and Eastcastle Street. It is joined on its western side by Marylebone Passag ...

s - were created. After earlier piecemeal development, Berners undertook systematic development of what is now Fitzrovia between 1758 and 1772. Concerted development of the Berners estate included the creation of Charles and Suffolk (now Nassau) Streets and various mews between the main north–south streets. Through his marriage to Mary Bendysh, he became a co-owner of the Wagwater estate in

St Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

in 1760. In 1767, Berners, together with his brother Henry, inherited estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, Middlesex, Essex and Buckinghamshire from Charles Gostlin, his mother's cousin. The brothers erected a monument to Charles Gostlin at

Morningthorpe Morningthorpe (sometimes Morning Thorpe) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of ''Morningthorpe and Fritton'' in the South Norfolk district, in the county of Norfolk, England. It is situated some south of the city of Nor ...

Church in Norfolk, expressing gratitude for their inheritance. The inheritance included Gostlin's estate at Hanwell Park in Middlesex. William Berners wanted to demolish the barns and cottages in front of Hanwell Park that were blocking his view. To acquire the land on containing the buildings, he proposed a land swap with the landowners, the Charity of William Hobbayne, of which his brother Henry was a trustee. A meeting of the charity's trustees on 15 June 1771 recorded: ''“Mr Berners is very desirous to have the cottage and barns belonging to this Trust situated in front of his house moved to some other place, as being an obstruction to his view and an obstacle to his improvements.”'' The land swap was secured by an Act of Parliament in 1775, sponsored by fellow slaveowner and Charity of William Hobbayne Trustee

Nathaniel Bayly Nathaniel Bayly (c. 1726 – 1798) was an English planter and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1770 to 1779. Early life In 1726, Nathaniel Bayly was born in Westbury, Wiltshire.''Nathaniel Bayly'', Legacies of British Slave-Owner ...

, MP for Westbury. Berners acquired extensive landholdings on the

Shotley Peninsula The Shotley Peninsula is a rural area east of the A137 Ipswich-Colchester road located between the rivers River Stour, Suffolk, Stour and River Orwell, Orwell in Suffolk, England. The peninsula is named after the settlements of Shotley and Sh ...

south of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

and commissioned Leicestershire architect John Johnson to design a fashionable gentleman's country residence,

Woolverstone Hall Woolverstone Hall is a large country house, now in use as a school and available at times as a function venue, located south of the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is set in on the banks of the River Orwell. Built in 1776 for William B ...

, in 1776.Woolverstone Hall: History
Retrieved: 12 February 2020 Johnson had previously designed various buildings for Berners in London.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berners, William 1709 births 1783 deaths English businesspeople