This page provides a history of Allens Arthur Robinson, which can be traced back to 1822.
- Arthur Robinson & Co
- Hedderwick Fookes & Alston
- Allen Allen & Hemsley
- Feez Ruthning
- Allens Arthur Robinson Group
- Allens Arthur Robinson
Arthur Robinson & Co
Arthur Robinson & Co. began trading in Melbourne on 11 May 1914, just prior to the outbreak of World War I. Its two founding partners were Arthur Robinson and George Forrest Davies.
Robinson was born on 23 April 1872. The nephew of Australia's first Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton, he was later to become Sir Arthur Robinson. An ancestor was Sir Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers.
Davies' interests lay in the practice of the law and he was widely recognised for his outstanding skill and prowess as a lawyer. Enlisting in the Australian Army in 1915, he rose to the commissioned rank of Captain and was awarded the Military Cross. He died at the age of 72.
On matriculating from Melbourne's Scotch College, Robinson began his legal career with Collins Street firm Gillott, Croker & Snowden. He left in 1890 and entered into articles for five years with Australian Test cricketer and lawyer William Bruce of McCutcheon & Bruce.
Robinson was admitted to practice in 1896 and, in the following year, entered into a decade-long partnership with Bruce. After the Bruce & Robinson business ended, Robinson opened a Collins Street office, moving in 1912 to the newly-constructed Collins House at 360 Collins Street.
Robinson's interests lay in politics and he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly at age 28. He moved to federal politics in 1903, representing Wannon in the House of Representatives for three years. After a hiatus of several years, he was once again elected to the Victorian Parliament, this time to the Upper House, where he served from 1912 to 1924. His roles included Attorney General and Minister responsible for state electricity undertakings during planning and development of the Yallourn power scheme.
Robinson became a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1912 and was knighted in 1923 (KCMG - Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George).
Outside of law and politics, Robinson was involved with his old school, chairing its council and becoming president of the Old Scotch Collegians' Association. His enthusiasm and outstanding work for Scotch is memorialised by the college house that bears his name.
Sir Arthur Robinson died on 17 May 1945 aged 73 years. Arthur Robinson & Co. merged with Hedderwick Fookes & Alston in 1984.
Hedderwick Fookes & Alston
The company that became Hedderwick Fookes & Alston can be traced back to English attorney William Adams Brodribb. He was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude in New South Wales for 'administering an unlawful oath' of loyalty to a group of poachers who murdered a gamekeeper. When he regained his freedom, Brodribb moved to Tasmania and had a son, Kenric Edmund Brodribb, who was admitted in 1852 to practise law in Victoria.
In 1854, Kenric Brodribb took on an articled clerk, Robert Lewis, and was joined by a friend, Thomas Crisp, in 1855. Lewis joined Brodribb and Crisp in partnership four years later. In 1867 Brodribb left the firm he had established, leaving Crisp & Lewis to continue.
Henry Hedderwick was born in Scotland in 1831. He was articled to Charles Palmer in Melbourne in 1852 and set up partnership with Palmer in 1863. In 1876, he took on William Fookes as an articled clerk and both joined Crisp & Lewis in the same year. Fookes was made a partner in 1883, and the firm name changed to Crisp Lewis Hedderwick & Fookes in 1898. Following years of successful land speculation, Thomas Crisp shot and killed himself in 1889 after land prices crashed.
The partnership of Crisp Lewis Hedderwick & Fookes dissolved acrimoniously in 1906 - a brick wall had been built across the office to separate Robert Lewis and his son from the other partners. Soon afterwards, the firm was renamed Hedderwick Fookes & Hedderwick, as Henry Hedderwick's son Bruce had joined the partnership in 1905.
Thomas Cauvine Alston, born in Melbourne in 1868, joined the firm in 1910 and the name was changed to Hedderwick Fookes & Alston. Around this time, the business moved to new premises at Batman House on William Street. The bluestone building was situated on the graveyard of the former St James' church.
An articled clerk at the firm, Colin Syme, had ambitions to become a barrister, but after the premature death of Bruce Hedderwick in 1925, he accepted an offer to stay at the firm and was made a partner in 1928. Until the 1940s, the accountants exerted more influence than the partners over the running of the office. Syme was determined to change this and, with the assistance of a fellow partner, James Forrest, he succeeded in wresting influence from the accountants. This was a significant step in becoming a modern commercial law firm.
By the mid-1960s, Batman House was becoming dilapidated, so Hedderwick Fookes & Alston moved to 121 William Street in 1969.
In 1984, in response to a changing legal profession where many firms were expanding by merging, Hedderwick Fookes & Alston merged with Arthur Robinson & Co. to become Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks.
Allen Allen & Hemsley
The Sydney firm that became Allen Allen & Hemsley has been in existence since 1822, making it Australia's longest continuous legal partnership. Five generations of Allens have worked in the business. George Allen, who founded the firm, was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 22 July 1822. He was the first solicitor who served his articles in the Colony to be admitted.
George Allen had four sons. The oldest, George Wigram (known as Wigram), was articled to his father in 1841 and taken into partnership in 1847, when the firm became known as Allen & Son.
In 1857, Wigram Allen took into partnership his cousin, Thomas Kendall Bowden, and the firm then became known as Allen Son & Bowden. Another two of George Allen's sons, Walter and Mansfield, were also admitted as solicitors in 1862 and 1867 respectively. Walter died in 1867, while Mansfield became a partner in 1869. The firm became known as Allen Bowden & Allen. Bowden died in 1879, leaving Wigram and Mansfield as the only partners and the firm name was changed to Allen & Allen.
Wigram Allen had six sons, all of whom entered law. Three sons, Reginald, Arthur and Herbert, became solicitors and partners in the firm. In 1885, Wigram died suddenly, and his brother Mansfield died three weeks later. Arthur Allen, who was serving his articles at the time, took it upon himself to re-organise things. Arthur became a partner in 1886.
Until 1885, the firm had been almost entirely an Allen family business, but Arthur Allen realised that it would be necessary to bring in outside talent if the firm was to survive. Alfred Macartney Hemsley joined the firm as partner in 1894. Another appointment was that of accountant John Henry Joseph Lyon, who worked for the firm from 1888 until his retirement in the early 1950s - a longer time than anyone else, before or since.
Following Hemsley's appointment, the firm became known as Allen Allen & Hemsley. Herbert Allen became a partner in 1896. Cecil Spencer de Grey Cowper joined the firm in 1902 and, towards the end of 1919, Harold Minter Taylor joined as a partner.
Hemsley was the powerhouse of the firm during the 1920s and 1930s. One of Sydney's finest lawyers, he was appointed to the Legislative Council in the late 1920s. He was also Chairman of St Luke's Hospital. He died in 1937 after a long illness.
Between 1922 and 1924, a new generation of Allens came into the firm as partners: Arthur Denis Wigram Allen, the only son of Arthur Allen, and George Wigram Dundas Allen, elder son of Boyce Allen. Norman Cowper, only son of Cecil Cowper, also joined as a partner. Richard Hasting Allen, son of Herbert, came into the office in 1924 as an articled clerk, became a partner in 1928 and left the firm in 1930.
Since his father's death in 1885, Arthur Allen had been the sole owner of the firm and responsible for its financial management. After his death soon after World War I, the firm was reorganised to become a partnership in the fullest sense.
David Wigram Allen, eldest son of Denis Allen and a fifth-generation Allen, was taken into partnership in 1960. There are currently no direct descendants of the Allen family working for the firm.
Allen Allen & Hemsley merged with the Brisbane firm, Feez Ruthning, in 1996.
Feez Ruthning
Heinrich Eduard Ludwig Ruthning was born in Germany in 1841 and arrived in Adelaide in 1850 at the age of eight. His family moved to Brisbane and Ruthning became a bank clerk. He decided to study law and was articled to Robert Little of Little Browne & Co in 1871 at the age of 30. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1876 but was not offered a partnership, so set up his own practice in Toowoomba. Within a year, Little & Browne invited Ruthning to return to Brisbane as a partner, and he accepted.
Despite having almost sole responsibility for the practice, in the early 1880s Ruthning found time to write a book on The Bills Exchange Act 1884. Little and Browne retired in 1885 and some years later Ruthning took on a new partner, Magnus Jensen, who later became the Hon. Magnus Jensen, MLC.
As well as his practice, Ruthning became a Trustee of the Agricultural Bank and a director of the Brisbane Newspaper Co Ltd.
Ruthning's son, Adalbert (Bert), was born in 1874 and was admitted in 1899, working as a solicitor for Ruthning & Jensen. In 1911, with his father due for retirement, Bert felt entitled to become a partner. However, Jensen was resisting pressure from Ruthning to admit his son as a partner. Around the same time, Adolph Feez, of Feez & Bayne, was looking for the next step in his career.
Adolph Friedrick Milford Feez was born in 1858, son of Albrecht Feez who was born in Bavaria and settled in Rockhampton.
Adolph trained first as a surveyor but was later persuaded to study law. He was admitted in 1885 and briefly worked for a law firm in Cairns before moving back to Brisbane to take up a partnership at MacPherson & Miskin, with the firm changing its name to MacPherson, Miskin & Feez.
Feez pursued many interests outside the law and was founder of the Queensland Lawn Tennis Association and the Queensland Polo Association.
Miskin retired in 1890 and 10 years later MacPherson also retired, leaving Feez with the bulk of the practice. In 1905, Feez took on a new partner, Arthur Baynes, and the firm became Feez & Baynes.
Adolph Feez's brother Arthur, a prominent KC in Brisbane and Sydney, heard about the problems at Ruthning & Jensen and advised Adolph to merge with them. In 1912, the firms merged: Jensen was 'let go'; Baynes remained as a partner; Heinrich Ruthning retired; Bert Ruthning became a partner senior to Baynes; and Feez was senior partner. The merged firm was called Feez Ruthning & Bayne.
In 1920, Wilfred Prosser Rowland entered into his articled clerkship with Adolph Feez. Bayne retired in 1923, so when Rowland was admitted in 1925, he took Bayne's place as partner. Rowland soon emerged as the powerhouse of the firm.
In 1927 the firm name changed to Feez Ruthning & Co. and would continue under that name until 1986.
Feez and Ruthning both retired in 1942. Rowland retired from the firm thirty years later, but stayed on as a consultant. He died in 1983. Feez Ruthning merged with Allen Allen & Hemsley in 1996.
Allens Arthur Robinson Group
The Australian Legal Group was formed in July 1987. It was an experiment in closer cooperation between firms without merging. There was no contract; the relationship was a commitment to refer clients and use the same publicity resources and letterhead.
In 1994, the Australian Legal Group became the Allens Arthur Robinson Group, in response to mergers and changes among members of the Australian Legal Group.
Allens Arthur Robinson
On 1 July 2001, the firms Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks and Allen Allen & Hemsley merged to create Allens Arthur Robinson, one of the largest law firms in the Asia Pacific.
