Berwick, Walter (1800–68), barrister and judge, was the second son of Rev. Edward Berwick (qv), rector of Esker, Lucan, Co. Dublin, and his first wife, Annie Bermingham. He entered TCD in 1815 and graduated BA in 1821. Called to the Irish bar in 1826, he was made a queen's counsel in 1840. In the course of a varied career, he served as chairman of the quarter sessions of Waterford (1835–47), and of the East Riding of Cork (1847–59). He was made a serjeant at law (1855), a bencher of the King's Inns (1856), and served as a judge of the Irish bankruptcy court (1859–66). He was significant in being one of the first to expound the concept of the suspended sentence.
His Dublin residence was at 9 Lower Fitzwilliam Street, where he lived with his brother Edward Berwick (qv) (1804–77), a barrister and later president of QCG. Both shared an interest in art and were active in many areas of Dublin's cultural life. Walter was a founding member and trustee of the Stephen's Green Club in 1838, and was on the committee of the Union Club from February 1839. In 1853 he was one of the main organisers of the Industrial Exhibition at Leinster Lawn and was involved in the campaign for the foundation of a national gallery in Ireland.
On 20 August 1868 he was travelling with his sister on the Irish mail train from Chester to Holyhead, returning from holidays in England, when at Abergele in Wales the train collided with six loose freight wagons, three containing paraffin. In the resulting fire all passengers in the first four coaches of the mail train were killed; Walter Berwick and his sister were among the thirty-five dead. The victims were buried together in a communal grave at St Michael's Church in Abergele; a monument was later erected in the churchyard.
Berwick never married. The Berwick Art Club was founded in his memory in Dublin in October 1868.