Michael Berry, Baron Hartwell

William Michael Berry, Baron Hartwell MBE (18 May 1911 – 3 April 2001), was a British newspaper proprietor and journalist.

Life and career

Berry was the second son of Mary Agnes (Corns) and William Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

Berry followed his brother Seymour Berry, 2nd Viscount Camrose as Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers. He remained in this role until the takeover by Conrad Black in 1986. He was also the backer behind the arts review, X magazine.^[1]

Berry was awarded a life peerage as Baron Hartwell, of Peterborough Court in the City of London in 1968. He succeeded his elder brother as 3rd Viscount Camrose in 1995, but disclaimed the title.

Marriage & Family

Lord Hartwell married Lady Pamela Smith (1915-1982), daughter of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead. They had four children together:^[2]

• Adrian Michael Berry, 4th Viscount Camrose (born 15 June 1937)
• Hon Nicholas William Berry (born 3 July 1942)
• Hon Harriet Mary Margaret Berry (born 8 November 1944)
• Hon Eleanor Agnes Berry (born 6 May 1950)

Hartwell died in Westminster, London,^[3] aged 89 and was succeeded in the viscountcy, barony and baronetcy by his elder son.

References

1. “David Wright's and Patrick Swift's legendary X set the common agenda for a generation of European painters, writers and dramatists.”-Michael Schmidt (founder of Carcanet Press, editor of Poetry Nation Review and Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow) wrote in The Guardian in 2006
2. The Peerage, entry for Lord Hartwell
3. Deaths England and Wales 1984-2006

• Cowling, Maurice, The Impact of Hitler - British Policies and Policy 1933-1940, Cambridge University Press, 1975, p. 402, ISBN 0-521-20582-4

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord Hartwell
• Deedes, ‘Berry, (William) Michael, Baron Hartwell (1911–2001)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Jan 2005; online edn, Oct 2005, accessed 11 Jan 2008