Joseph Birch (1755 – 1833) was a founder member of the Athenaeum and an officer on its first committee. He invested in nine slaving voyages prior to the establishment of the club and was also an owner of enslaved people on plantations in Jamaica, as well as having interests in the Liverpool St. George’s Fire insurance company. Birch also had a political career, serving as MP for Nottingham and Ludgershall. In 1786, he married Elizabeth Mary Heywood (1761 – 1825), the daughter of Benjamin Heywood (1723 – 1795), a prominent Liverpool slave trader and banker. Birch was made a baronet in 1831. He died in 1833 the same year the act was passed abolishing slavery. In 1835, his son, Thomas, received compensation for the enslaved people his father had owned in Jamaica.