William Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose
1879-1954
UK publisher
1. Introduction
William Berry was a publishing magnate, co-owning the Sunday Times, Financial Times and Daily Telegraph with his younger brother Gomer. He began as a trainee journalist at age 14 in Wales, then moved to London and built up a publishing portfolio, making an early fortune with The War Illustrated (1914-1919). He serialised some of Churchill’s writings and was a successful literary agent for him. When Churchill was considering selling Chartwell, Camrose arranged for its purchase for the nation. He had a passion for sports, games and luxury yachts. His publishing empire was sold off in stages, bringing it to an end in 1986.
2. Stories
- Together with his brother Gomer, William Berry built a publishing empire from scratch.
- All three Berry brothers became peers, one for his industrial success and the other two for their publishing achievements.
- Churchill’s painting of a scene at Hackwood Park, Camrose’s country property, was later owned by Valerie Eliot, widow of the poet T.S. Eliot.
- When Camrose heard that Churchill was thinking of selling Chartwell, he arranged for its purchase and transfer to the National Trust.
- Camrose was one of three press barons who helped to hush up Churchill’s major stroke in 1953.
- Camrose also apparently suppressed disclosure of top secret war information that he could have published.
- Camrose was a sports and games enthusiast, enjoying competitive yachting and founding the Camrose Trophy for an international bridge tournament.
Together with his brother Gomer, William Berry built a publishing empire from scratch.
William left school at age 14 and spent five years with local newspapers in the Merthyr Tydfil area in Wales. He moved to London and launched Advertising World with his younger brother Gomer, assisted by a loan from their elder brother, Seymour. They developed a range of leisure and sport magazines as well as the highly popular The War Illustrated, which included articles by Churchill and H.G. Wells. The War Illustrated financed their purchase of the struggling Sunday Times in 1915, which they turned around. They proceeded to buy the Financial Times, numerous regional papers and the Daily Telegraph, becoming major rivals of Lord Rothermere (Harold Harmsworth) and Lord Beaverbrook (Max Aitken).
By 1932, they owned 17 newspapers, over 70 magazines, an encyclopaedia and book business, three printing presses and some paper mills. In 1937 the brothers decided to go their own ways, with William retaining the Telegraph and Financial Times, and Gomer taking control of the Sunday Times. Their parting was amicable and Gomer would often print his brother’s Telegraph in Manchester during World War II when London’s Fleet Street was under threat of being bombed.
William became a baron in 1929 and a viscount in 1941, choosing the title of Camrose, a village in Pembrokeshire. He sold the Financial Times in 1945 (see Brendan Bracken). His non-Telegraph interests were held by Amalgamated Press, sold four years after his death. Gomer sold his publishing interests in 1959. William’s sons Seymour and Michael ran the Telegraph until 1986, when it was sold to Canadian businessman Conrad Black, bringing the Berry publishing empire to an end.
Berry paid Churchill a considerable amount for his writing and acted as his agent for other deals. He serialised Churchill’s Marlborough: His Life and Times (1933-38) after the Times had declined to do so. When Beaverbrook’s Evening Standard discontinued Churchill’s articles in 1939 for being anti-appeasement, Berry’s Telegraph took him on. After the war, Camrose and Emery Reves negotiated publishing rights for The Second World War (1948-53) for a total of £600,000 (£23 million today), the largest ever non-fiction publishing deal at the time.
All three Berry brothers became peers, one for his industrial success and the other two for their publishing achievements.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that all three Berry brothers attaining peerages is probably a record of sorts, ‘being from a non-aristocratic family and an unfashionable industrial town [Merthyr Tydfil] […] Perhaps no less remarkable for a strong-willed and powerful trio, they were mutually supportive.’1
The eldest, Seymour, worked in his father’s estate agency for two decades, then entered the coal business and rapidly built up a colliery and ironworks portfolio. He became Lord Buckland in 1926, the name taken from his estate. It was there that he died from a head injury when his horse veered against a telegraph pole. He had five daughters and his title became extinct.
Like William, Gomer left school at age 14 to work for the Merthyr Tydfil Times. He became Lord Kemsley in 1936, choosing the name from the location of a paper mill that he and William had bought near Sittingbourne, Kent. The mill was one of the largest in the world when it was constructed in 1924; Kemsley was the village built for its employees. Unlike William, Gomer was a supporter of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. He became chairman of Reuters News Agency in the 1950s and retired to Monte Carlo in 1959. He had six sons and one daughter. His firstborn, Lionel, was a Conservative MP and newspaper editor, becoming 2nd Viscount Kemsley in 1968.
Camrose had four sons and four daughters. When he died in 1954, his son Seymour became 2nd Viscount Camrose. In addition to his newspaper roles, Seymour was a Conservative MP during World War II and served in north Africa and Italy. After a 30-year relationship, he married Joan Yarde-Buller when he was 76 and she was a year older. She was first married to Loel Guinness, a member of the brewing dynasty, then to Prince Aly Khan, son of Aga Khan III.
Seymour had no children and his brother Michael became 3rd Viscount Camrose, which he renounced. He was already a lord, Baron Hartwell; his son Adrian became 4th Viscount Camrose on his death. Michael married Lord Birkenhead’s daughter Pamela, and Michael’s sister Sheila married Lord Birkenhead’s son Freddy.
Churchill’s painting of a scene at Hackwood Park, Camrose’s country property, was later owned by Valerie Eliot, widow of the poet T.S. Eliot.
Camrose bought Hackwood Park in Hampshire in 1936, a large house in an extensive estate. He wanted a residence outside the bustle of London which would be a suitable place for hosting friends and dignitaries. In the late 1930s, Churchill did a painting of a long, straight path in a wood at the property with beech trees on either side and a majestic canopy roof, entitled ‘Cathedral Avenue, Hackwood Park’. He gave it to Camrose and it was inherited by Seymour, then sold by Seymour’s estate at Christie’s in 1999 for £41,100 (equivalent to £70,000 today).
The buyer was Valerie Eliot who had built up a contemporary art collection since the death of her husband T.S. Eliot in 1965. Much of her income was derived from royalties from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats (1981), based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). She died in 2012, and her estate sold the painting for charity the following year, this time for £362,500 (equivalent to £408,000 today), due to its enhanced provenance and a buoyant market.
Cathedral Avenue changed somewhat after being heavily damaged in the ‘Great Storm’ of 1987, and has been replanted with London plane trees. The beech trees at Chartwell were also badly damaged in the same storm.
Previous residents of Hackwood Park, as tenants, include the Queen of Belgium during World War I, and subsequently Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India and Liberal foreign secretary. During World War II, the house was used as a hospital by the Canadian Army, treating more than 16,500 troops, accommodated in temporary buildings on the lawns. On Camrose’s death in 1954, the property passed to Seymour who lived there until his own death in 1995. Seymour’s wife Joan died two years later and the property was subsequently sold outside the family.
When Camrose heard that Churchill was thinking of selling Chartwell, he arranged for its purchase and transfer to the National Trust.
In 1944, Churchill was approached by the estate agent Knight Frank & Rutley, through which he had bought Chartwell in 1922, proposing its sale and conversion into a hotel. Churchill declined, but it made him think. After the war, at age 70, he evaluated his finances and circumstances, and mentioned to Camrose that he thought he should sell Chartwell. Knowing of Churchill’s love of the property, and being concerned about the potential loss to the nation of such heritage, Camrose asked Churchill if he would accept a purchase price of £50,000 (equivalent to £2.2 million today) and become a life tenant, after which Chartwell would become a Churchill memorial. Churchill agreed readily and offered in jest to throw his corpse into the deal.
Berry contributed £15,000 (£635,000 today) and 16 others contributed £5,000 (£210,000) each, totalling £95,000 (£4.0 million). The property was bought in November 1946 for the agreed £50,000, with the remaining amount going into an endowment to cover the majority of the building’s upkeep. Churchill signed a 50-year tenancy at a rent of £350 per year (£15,000 today; £1,250 per month). He was responsible for insurance, rates, the gardens and internal decorations.
The donors’ names were confidential at the time but were made public by Berry’s son in 1989 and are now acknowledged on a plaque at Chartwell.* They reflect Berry’s circle of contacts rather than those of Churchill. All were invited by Churchill to a thank-you lunch at Chartwell in July 1947.
Winston and Clementine lived at Chartwell until October 1964, after which they stayed in their central London home at 28 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington.** Churchill died there on 24 January 1965, nine days after his final stroke. Clementine could have remained as a tenant at Chartwell but chose not to do so. She sold Hyde Park Gate and moved into an apartment nearby. Under her guidance, Chartwell was returned to the layout it had in the 1920s and 1930s, its heydays, and was opened to the public in June 1966.
* The donors shown (without reference to occupations) are: Viscount Camrose (publisher), Sir Edward Peacock (merchant banker), Viscount Bearsted (art collector), Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen (tobacco executive), Lord Glendyne (stockbroker), Lord Leathers (shipping executive), Mr James de Rothschild (Liberal politician), Sir Frederick Stewart (engineer), Mr J. Arthur Rank (Rank films), Viscount Portal of Laverstoke (paper manufacturer), Sir Edward Mountain (underwriter), Sir James Lithgow (shipbuilder), Lord Kenilworth (engine and vehicle manufacturer), Lord Bicester (merchant banker), Sir James Caird (shipowner), Lord Catto (governor of the Bank of England), Viscount Nuffield (founder of Morris Motors, Nuffield Trust and Nuffield College, Oxford).2
** This is the only address at which there is an English Heritage blue plaque for Churchill. It states: ‘SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, K.G. 1874-1965 Prime Minister lived and died here’. There is one for his father at 2 Connaught Place, Marble Arch, London: ‘LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 1849-1895 STATESMAN lived here 1883-1892’.3
Camrose was one of three press barons who helped to hush up Churchill’s major stroke in 1953.
Churchill had around 10 strokes in all, mostly minor, but the one on 23 June 1953 nearly took his life. After a dinner on a Tuesday evening at 10 Downing Street, he slumped into a chair, and his guests were asked to leave. He managed to run a cabinet meeting the next day but was slurring. On the Thursday, his private secretary Jock Colville drove him to Chartwell, where he deteriorated, losing the use of his left arm and leg. Churchill’s doctor Lord Moran did not think he would last more than a few days.
Colville contacted Camrose, Beaverbrook and Bracken urgently. He later wrote that ‘All three immediately came to Chartwell and paced the lawn in earnest conversation. They achieved the all but incredible, and in peacetime possibly unique, success of gagging Fleet Street, something they would have done for nobody but Churchill.’4
This was not an easy task, as they only had direct control of less than 40 percent of the national morning circulation and less than 25 percent of national Sunday and London evening papers. Other press barons included Rothermere, J.J. Astor, Laurence Cadbury, A.G. Cousins and Philip Dunn, all hungry for circulation figures.
Private plans were made for Churchill to resign if he did not die. However, he started improving after a week, although it took two to three months before he was functioning sufficiently to undertake light duties. Meanwhile, the fort was held by Rab Butler, Anthony Eden, Sir Norman Brook (secretary of the cabinet), Christopher Soames (Churchill’s son-in-law), Jock Colville, and a few others in the know.
Churchill started attending some meetings again in August, and by September was well enough to appear at a horserace in public with the Queen. After further recuperation at Beaverbrook’s villa in France, he continued to resume normal business, albeit with less than his usual energy. Nothing was said publicly about a stroke until he mentioned it in passing in a speech a year later.
Camrose also apparently suppressed disclosure of top secret war information that he could have published.
A diary entry by Jock Colville in July 1941 notes: ‘Desmond [Morton] has made the horrifying discovery that the press, or at any rate Lord Camrose and his staff, have found out about the most closely guarded secret of the war: namely the contents of those buff boxes which “C” sends to the P.M. Leakages increase in number and seriousness.’5
Desmond Morton was Churchill’s personal assistant from 1940 to 1945. The boxes contained decoded messages from Bletchley Park, which had broken the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. ‘C’ is the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who typically signs letters as such, in green ink. ‘C’ was adapted to ‘M’ by Ian Fleming in his James Bond books, from the name of spymaster Maxwell Knight (see UK Fascist Groups).
In an explanatory note, Colville says, ‘If Desmond Morton’s information was correct, Lord Camrose and his staff showed commendable discretion; for no word of what was subsequently called the Ultra Secret was printed till several decades after the war’.6
Colville also mentions the brownish-yellow boxes in May 1941 while at Chequers, the prime minister’s official country residence. ‘The PM, tempted by the warmth, sat in the garden working and glancing at me with suspicion from time to time in the (unwarranted) belief that I was trying to read the contents of his special buff boxes.’7
Morton’s concern about a leak has some irony, as he himself leaked a considerable amount of confidential material (to Churchill), albeit for what he may have considered to be in the country’s best interests. While Churchill was secretary of state for war in 1919-21, he had helped Morton gain a position in military intelligence. By the 1930s, Morton was the head of an agency monitoring German rearmament, a topic of considerable interest to Churchill, even though he was out of office. Morton’s sharing of classified information with Churchill was assisted by the fact that he lived in Crockham Hill, less than two miles from Chartwell.
Camrose was a sports and games enthusiast, enjoying competitive yachting and founding the Camrose Trophy for an international bridge tournament.
In 1927 Camrose commissioned Cambria, a 75 foot (23 metre) sailing boat, to compete against the likes of King George V and Sir Mortimer Singer of the sewing machine family. Rule changes soon made it uncompetitive and he sold it to businessman Sir Robert McAlpine (2nd baronet). After refits, it still races today. He then bought the luxury yacht Sona which was requisitioned during World War II and bombed in Poole harbour.
In 1948, he bought the 189 feet (59 metre) Virginia from textile heir Stephen Courtauld. After Camrose’s death it was sold to Liberia where it became President Tubman’s official yacht. It was converted in 1971 for use as a casino in Sierra Leone until destroyed by fire.
Berry was vice commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, Isle of Wight, which initiated the America’s Cup in 1851 by challenging the US schooner America. The Squadron presents the Camrose Trophy annually to the member who has kept the best log of their travels.
A separate Camrose Trophy is awarded to the winner of an annual bridge competition between the four UK nations and Ireland. Although bridge is not normally a spectator sport, in 2017 the competition was shown on a big screen at the Scottish venue and enthusiasts were invited to sit behind players as ‘kibitzers’, a Yiddish term for someone watching cards over a shoulder.
Camrose’s local football team was Basingstoke Town to which he gave a new ground after World War II. ‘The Camrose’ grew to a capacity of 6,000 but the club had to relocate in 2019 when the property was earmarked for conversion into a housing estate, despite a ‘Save the Camrose’ campaign.
Camrose’s son Seymour continued his father’s yachting interest and purchased the 88 foot (27 metre) Tartar in which he cruised the Mediterranean with his partner Joan. At a top speed of 12 knots, it was no match for the 45-knot superyachts of Joan’s son Aga Khan IV, Kalamoun and Shergar, named after two of his racehorses.
3. Biographical overview
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Country | UK |
| Career | Journalist on the Merthyr Times at age 14 (1893). Launched own paper Advertising World (1901). Published The War Illustrated (1914-1919). With his brother Gomer, purchased the Sunday Times (1915), Financial Times (1919), Daily Telegraph (1927) and the Telegraph’s rival the Morning Post (1937). Editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times (1915-37) and Daily Telegraph (1927-54). Occasional literary agent for Churchill. |
| Born | 1879 in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales (five years younger than Churchill) |
| Father | John Berry (1847-1917), estate agent, alderman |
| Mother | Anne Rowe (c.1847-1922) |
| Siblings | Third of four children: 1. Lucy (1871-1930), married David Berry-Jones 2. Seymour (1877-1928), 1st and last Baron Buckland; industrialist; died from head injuries from a horse riding accident 3. William Ewert (1879–1954) 4. Gomer (1883-1868), 1st Viscount Kemsley, editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times 1937-59 |
| Education | Left school at age 14 |
| Spouse | Mary Corns (1883-1962), m.1905 until Camrose’s death |
| Relationships | |
| Children | 1. Mary (1906-96), married Ronald McNair Scott, literary critic 2. Seymour (1909-1995), 2nd Viscount Camrose, MP and publisher; married Joan Yarde-Buller when he was 76; she was previously married to Loel Guinness (distant relative of Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne), then Aly Khan, son of Aga Khan III 3. Michael (1911-2001), 3rd Viscount Camrose, editor and publisher; married Pamela, daughter of Churchill’s friend Lord Birkenhead (F.E. Smith); wrote a biography of his father 4. Sheila (1913-92), married Frederick, son of Lord Birkenhead 5. Molly (1915-95), married names Chetwode then Seely then Cotterell 6. Rodney (1917-63), publisher; married Susan Fearnley-Whittingstall (distant relative of Hugh, chef, writer and TV presenter) 7. Julian (1920-88), army officer; married Janet Rowan-Thomson 8. Diana (1924-95), married William Macauley |
| Died | 1954 in Royal South Hampshire Hospital, Southampton, aged 74 (11 years before Churchill). |
| Buried | Memorial service at St Paul’s cathedral; cremated at Woking |
| Chartwell | Visitors’ book: 6 recorded visits (1934-1953) |
| Other Club | Yes (1954) |
| Nickname | – |
4. See also
Press magnates
- Beaverbrook, Lord (Max Aitken)
- Bracken, Brendan
- Rothermere, Lord (Harold Harmsworth)
Churchill’s literary agents
- Korda, Alexander
Other characters
- Aga Khan III (Aly Khan)
- Churchill’s personal assistants: John Colville, Desmond Morton
Churchill controversies
- Financial affairs
- Lifestyle and health
5. Further reading
Camrose
- Hart-Davis, Duff, The House the Berrys Built (Coronet Books, 1991)[1]
- Hartwell, William M.B., William Camrose: Giant of Fleet Street (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1992)[2]
Camrose and Churchill
- Churchill, Winston, ‘The Cathedral, Hackwood Park’, Christie’s, 2013
- Dockter, Warren, Winston Churchill at the Telegraph (Aurum Press, 2015)
UK press
- Brooke, Alan, Fleet Street: The Story of a Street (Amberley Publishing, 2010)
- Curran, James, and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain (Taylor & Francis, 2018)
Churchill and the press
- Read, Simon, Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent (Hachette Books, 2015)
- Toye, Richard, Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Churchill’s finances
- Lough, David, No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money (Head of Zeus, 2015) (see index for sections on Camrose)
Miscellaneous
- Bennett, Gill, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (Taylor & Francis, 2006)
- Buczacki, Stefan, From Blenheim to Chartwell: The Untold Story of Churchill’s Houses and Gardens (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2018)
6. References
1. Adrian Smith, ‘Berry, William Ewert, First Viscount Camrose’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008).
2. English Heritage, ‘Blue Plaques’, English Heritage.
3. National Trust Collections, ‘Wall Plaque 1100823.1’, National Trust Collections.
4. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume Two: 1941-April 1955 (Sceptre, 1987), p. 329.
5. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume One: 1939-October 1941 (Sceptre, 1986), p. 503.
6. Colville, Fringes of Power: Volume One, p. 503.
7. Colville, Fringes of Power: Volume One, p. 455.