JOSEPH WHITAKER
Joseph Whitaker was born on 7 August 1802 in West Ardsley, West Yorkshire, England.
In 1819, he moved to Palermo to help his maternal uncle Benjamin Ingham to manage the company “Casa di Commercio Ingham e C.” and the “wine production in Marsala“.
In addition to inventing, producing, and exporting Marsala wine, uncle and nephew put together a fleet that sailed to North America and the Far East and in 1840 they were joined by their young friend Vincenzo Florio.
In 1851, Benjamin Ingham passed the helm to his nephew Joseph Whitaker who had shown great business skills. Within three years, Joseph managed to increase the wine production considerably, reaching an output of 4,000 barrels per year, with 190 workers, of which 160 adults and 30 boys.
Joseph, head of the Whitaker dynasty, also played a role during the unification of Italy.
In 1860, while Garibaldi and his voluntary troops landed in Marsala, the Ingham/Whitaker and Woodhouse wineries raised the British flag warning the Bourbon Army that fire from King Ferdinand’s fleet would be met with fire in order to protect British interests in Sicily and the negotiations that followed worked in Garibaldi’s favour.
At the end of the 1880s, after a long positive trend the sector was in crisis but the Ingham/Whitaker wine production was not affected as the plant had been modernised with the introduction of new equipment. Joseph Whitaker had twelve children from his wife E. Sophia Sanderson, including Joshua (Joss), Joseph (Pip), and Robert (Bob), who after their father’s death, on 17 October 1884, managed the Ingham-Whitaker winery in Marsala together, with Joshua at the helm.