William Berczy (1744-1813)

William Berczy was a colonizer, artist, and architect in the late 18th and early 19th centuries of what is now Ontario and Quebec. He founded Markham and played a key role in the development of York (now Toronto). Recognized for his portrait miniatures and larger oil paintings of important figures in Upper Canada, his art greatly enriched portrait painting in early Canada. He also worked as an architect and engineer, and had significant commissions in Upper and Lower Canada that reveal his high reputation.

Born Johann Albrecht Ulrich Moll, he was baptized in 1744 in Wallerstein, Bavaria (now Germany) and began using the name William Berczy in the 1770s. Around the year 1777, he severed all ties with his family and moved to Florence, Italy, where he worked as a painter of miniatures. In 1790, he moved to London, England.

In 1792, in partnership with British land speculators, Berczy, his wife, and nearly 200 German settlers left the continent to develop a tract of land in western New York. When this first effort at colonization failed, Berzcy led the settlers to Upper Canada. When Berczy arrived in York in 1794, the British colony was only three years old, having been severed from Lower Canada by the Constitutional Act of 1791. Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe offered Berczy and his settlers land in return for construction work in the early town of York. The settlers constructed a section of Yonge Street, a military and commercial artery, and settled in what is now Markham.

Throughout the busy colonizing years, Berczy somehow found the time to paint, although it was only at the end of his life that he began to do so professionally. He was remarkably successful. The paintings he produced in Toronto and Montreal hold up a mirror to the social elite in Upper and Lower Canada in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Two of his paintings, Joseph Brant (c. 1807) and The Woolsey Family (1809) are considered exceptional works. In addition, his work as a miniaturist has been recognized as among the best in the genre.

Berczy’s considerable work as an architect and engineer is not fully understood. His best-known design and inaugural commission was for Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal’s first purpose-built Anglican church, later made the city’s Anglican cathedral. His design for Christ Church encouraged the spread of British architectural styles in Lower Canada. Berczy died February 5th, 1813, in New York City after a colourful, cosmopolitan, yet challenging life.