THE FIRST LADY EDITOR

This was the first Harvey's eldest daughter. Elizabeth Berrow, then aged 27. She took over the management of the business and continued for two years until her marriage in 1779 to John Tymbs, and it was his name thereafter that appeared in the imprint as the publisher. John Tymbs, who Elizabeth had married, and took over the running of the Journal, was emphatically a ''character.'' He was described an benign, benevolent and unswervingly honest. He has been pictured by the treatist, Dighton, in a group with his friends Dr Nash, the Worcester historian, Sir Anthony Lechmere, and nineteen other well-known Worcester personalities in 1829, and also in full-length portrait. His dress was even then considered so old-fashioned as to be almost odd. He was the last man in Worcester to wear his hair in a pig-tail. In his youth he had served an apprenticeship in London, but after his marriage to Elizabeth Berrow he seems to have been mainly engaged in the management of his wife's property in the printing house and Berrow's Worcester Journal.

In 1796 it is recorded that he accepted responsibility for issuing hair powder certificates. These documents certified compliance with the tax then newly imposed on all those who wished to wear their hair powdered, a fashion which the tax effectively killed. The tax was one guinea for each person, but those with more than two unmarried daughters in their family could let all their daughters powder their hair legally for a combined payment of two guineas. Privates, NCOs and subalterns in the Army and Navy were exempt, as also were Clergymen and dissenting preachers of all denominations with incomes of less than £100 per year.

John Tymbs

Both John Tymbs and his son Harvey Berrow Tymbs were admitted to the Worshipful Company of Clothiers incorporated in the City of Worcester by Charter of Queen Elizabeth. John Tymbs was admitted a Weaver in 1784 and became High Master in 1794. Harvey Berrow Tymbs was admitted a Weaver in 1822 and was Weaver's Warden in 1856. John Tymbs died in January 1835 at the age of 85, leaving his son Harvey, who he had taken into partnership to carry on the business with another son Henton James Tymbs and Henry Deighton. Pictures - These pictures have been preserved by descendants of Harvey Berrow. That on the left is probably a portrait of Elizabeth Tymbs, Harvey Berrow's grand daughter. The other picture is thought to be a silhoutte of the same person as an old lady, but in view of the fact that there is some doubt about both pictures, one or other may be Elizabeth Berrow who also became Elizabeth Tymbs when she married. .

The following letter dated October 7th 1779 appeared in the Journal columns while Elizabeth Berrow was at the Helm

''To the Printer of the Worcester Journal. I take the liberty of informing you and the public that the account of a melancholy accident happening to a poor man at Evesham which was inserted in your last paper is utterly devoid of foundation: as is likewise that part of it which mentions a certain person being mayor elect of that borough for the ensuing year. - It would better become that ridiculous scribbler who sent you such a paragraph to employ this wonderous abilities to a more laudable purpose than to intrude such an empty piece of pretended intelligence which is equally as void either of with or instruction as it most certainly is of truth. I am yours etc. H.'' This letter had the following footnote: (In order to suppress the like impositions on the public, the Printer in future will not insert any articles of deaths, marriages, etc which are sent by anonymous writers.) The actual occurence was that a man was reported to have fallen into a vat of boiling ale