Founder Trustee and Chairman of MacIntyre
We are sad to announce that Sir David Berriman, a founder trustee and former Chairman of MacIntyre has died.
Sir David’s son James was born in the 1950s with Down’s Syndrome and that was the catalyst for Sir David to help reshape the way people with learning disabilities are supported. He spent much of the next 50 years contributing to broad issues of social care and health.
In the late 1960s he approached Kenneth Newton Wright, a former Royal Marine, who had a son with Down’s Syndrome who sadly died young. Kenneth Newton Wright had a ground-breaking vision for creating an environment for people with learning disabilities to be challenged and supported to grow to their full potential.
The partners at Morgan Grenfell, where Sir David was a partner at the time, generously loaned the funds to the newly created charity, MacIntyre, to acquire a manor house in Westoning in Bedfordshire. This was converted into a special needs school for children with learning disabilities. Kenneth Newton Wright led the early development of MacIntyre and David Berriman became a founder Trustee. The charity was named after Kenneth Newton Wright’s maternal grandmother’s clan.
Sir David’s son James was in the first intake of eight children to be educated by MacIntyre and he is supported by the charity to this day. Nearly 60 years later, MacIntyre now supports just under 1,500 children, young people and adults with a learning disability and/or autism. It works alongside a £14m sister charity, MacIntyre Academies, providing education to children with autism, set up in 2012 by Sir David's son John Berriman.
Sir David chaired MacIntyre from 1977 to 1992 and was immensely proud both of his own legacy and that his son John continued the family involvement and himself chaired MacIntyre for 20 years until last year.
After he stepped down from the Board, Sir David continued to support MacIntyre and retained a strong interest in the organisation.
When his son John stepped down as Chairman in 2024, Sir David said:
It has been a particular pleasure that John has continued to keep me informed of progress at MacIntyre and the inevitable ups and downs that go with any business.
He has told me most recently of MacIntyre’s involvement with the Social Care Future movement. I was very struck with the concept of helping people lead ‘gloriously ordinary lives’. Ken Newton Wright and I were both determined that the children and adults who MacIntyre supported would be able to live a life with purpose, and this was a world away from the opportunities available to people with learning disabilities in the late 1960s.
I am so pleased that my son James and his late wife Angela, and countless others that MacIntyre has supported, have been able to do just that.
Our thoughts are with James, John and the Berriman family.
Photo: Sir David, James and John Berriman (l-r) on the occasion of Sir David's 95th birthday
