THE OLDER CHARITIES OF PLYMOUTH. 
55 
By this will John Berry virtually became a principal founder of 
the Hospital of Poor's Portion. 
Neither Mark nor William Berry had any male issue; Roger 
Berry died without issue ; Thomas Berry had one son and two 
daughters. This son, Thomas Berry the younger, also died without 
issue, but left the property at the Southside to his wife and her 
heirs, considering himself the owner in fee-simple. Then the Mayor 
and Commonalty stepped in and claimed the reversionary rights ; 
and the property was leased in 1626 by the widow, Elizabeth 
Berry, to Robert Trelawny and others for the use of the poor on 
payment of £70. Disputes arose with the daughters of Thomas 
Berry the elder, but the Mayor and Commonalty sustained their 
right ; and this property (both 1 and 3 ; for the house left to Collyn 
for life was also at the Southside) became a portion of the endow- 
ment of the Hospital of the Poor's Portion, the annuities merging. 
Concerning 2 we have less definite evidence. Its descent was 
not limited to heirs male in the case of William Berry, and it 
would seem that he did have daughters, in which case the reversion 
might not have accrued. He died about 1607. At the same time 
we have in that case to account for the disappearance of the third 
annuity of 6s. As the property was near the Church, the idea 
naturally suggests itself that it may very well have formed part of 
the original site of the Hospital, especially as the Hospital was not 
built until after the other Berry property had been acquired by the 
Mayor and Commonalty. That it did fall into the hands of the 
Corporation seems proven by the entry in 1637 of the allowance 
to John Clement and William Beele of four years' arrears of 
Berry's land "by the church." 
Here, however, we have to bear in mind that when the Hospital 
was built the Mayor and Commonalty claimed that it had been 
erected on their land — three tenements, the annual rental of which 
was £2 8s., 1 and, what is somewhat strange, that they in effect had 
payment for it. There is a curious order in the White Book, 
which sets forth that the three messuages and tenements on the 
site of which the Hospital had been erected were worth twenty 
marks a year in clear annual value. And whereas this was so, and 
whereas also the Corporation were possessed of three closes of land 
containing about six acres, then in the occupation of Philip 
1 A tenement next the churchyard conveyed to the Poor's Portion, was in 
1609 in the occupation of Daniel Northerell, clerk. 
