DONALDSON & BURKINSHAW, established since 6 November 1874, is one of the oldest law partnerships in Singapore. The Firm has a rich and colourful history dating back two centuries. Its founders, Alexander Muirhead Aitken, Alexander Leathes Donaldson and John Burkinshaw contributed actively to the legal profession, jurisprudence and public life of early Singapore. Aitken also left his mark in the judicial institutions, while Donaldson and Burkinshaw both dominated the legislative institution, of the former English settlement. This has been chronicled by Roland Braddell et al. in their celebrated work One Hundred Years of Singapore, as follows:
“Mr. Alexander Muirhead Aitken was admitted as a special law agent in Singapore in 1852, and was called to the English Bar at the Middle Temple in 1864. He took a leading part in public affairs for many years, and his name is to be found on many of the committees appointed at public meetings to carry on local agitations. As has been said, he acted as Registrar of the Court for a short while in 1856; and in 1870 he acted for a month or two as Attorney-General. Otherwise he practised privately, in 1861 with Mr. Abraham Logan, leaving him the next year, and from 1871 to 1873 with Mr. Bernard Rodyk. In 1873, Mr. Alexander Leathes Donaldson joined Mr. Aitken, and the next year they were joined by Mr. John Burkinshaw, the Firm being called in the Directory Aitken, Donaldson & Burkinshaw, though in the Bar records Aitken and Co. Mr. Aitken retired in 1879, and the Firm became Donaldson & Burkinshaw, as it is today.”
“It has already been mentioned that Mr. A. M. Aitken was the founder of the Firm of Donaldson & Burkinshaw. These two latter gentlemen were in leading practice from the ‘Seventies until the Nineties'. Both of them were respected and popular, and did much useful work in the place.
Alexander Leathes Donaldson was admitted an Attorney at Westminster in 1865, and to the local Bar in 1873; John Burkinshaw was admitted an Attorney at Westminster in 1863, and to the local Bar in 1874. When Mr. Bond retired his place on the Legislative Council was given to Mr. Burkinshaw; in 1893 it went to Mr. Donaldson, in 1896 back to Mr. Burkinshaw, Mr. Donaldson having retired in 1895. Mr. Burkinshaw continued to be on Council until 1902, when he retired….These two gentlemen built up the leading European practice of their day, and their jack-in-the-box possession of a seat on the Legislative Council undoubtedly gave the Firm great influence. Both of them were sound legislators, displaying force and wisdom in their speeches, and being of undoubted assistance to the deliberations of the Council.”
Mr. Donaldson was one of 3 members of the first local Bar Committee formed in 1875 to help the Attorney-General look into matters affecting the local profession and practice etiquette. In 1907, the Courts Ordinance made this Committee, effectively the genesis of today’s Law Society of Singapore, a statutory one.
Notably, Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Burkinshaw both acted for the plaintiff in the high profile law suit of The Jeddah [1881] KY 24 (Kyshe Law Reports), a case of an abandoned steamship with about 778 men, 147 women and 67 children on board, which inspired Joseph Conrad’s epic novel “Lord Jim” published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. The novel was later made into a 1965 Columbia Pictures movie of the same title.
The Firm was blessed with exceptional talent at the turn of the 19th century. Sir Hugh Fort, one of the earlier partners, was a fearsome top litigator who “cross-examined with rapier style”. He was later appointed King’s Counsel and co-authored the Index of Cases Judicially Noticed 1865-1890. One Hundred Years in Singapore described him thus (at page 234):
“It is said that Sir Hugh had the finest brain of any man who has ever come to the Straits, not merely in legal affairs but in public ones as well. He was a Member of Legislative Council from 1905 to 1908, and again from 1909 to 1910, being knighted in 191 1 after he had retired. For years he held a leading place in Singapore life ; he led its Bar, the Unofficials on its Legislative Council, and his word was law in all matters of sport and club life. As an advocate Sir Hugh was deadly ; he pounced on a weakness, he made the strength of his own case seem impregnable, and he was always cool and collected, while to his opponents he was fairness itself.”
Another exceptional talent who served the Firm as an administrator in that era was Mr. Chan Kim Boon, a Peranakan linguist who gained fame from his Baba Malay translations of Chinese classics such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin. Before joining the Firm, he taught mathematics at the Foochow Naval School in China to military men, several of whom became great Chinese admirals who courageously battled and martyred in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 to 1895.
Prior to the Second World War, the Firm was one of the leading law firms in Singapore with a wide clientele. It represented an impressive list of banks, companies and merchants. The practice was interrupted by the War during which the Firm’s documents and deeds were preserved at the Supreme Court, thanks to the timely efforts of some senior staff members. An account of the dramatic events can be found in a memoir, Fifty Years with Donaldson & Burkinshaw, by Mr. Norman Sylvester Hogan, an administrator who served the Firm for 50 years and retired in 1970.
After the War, the Firm continued to dominate the local legal arena as one of the top expatriate law firms. Its leaders continued to wield considerable influence in the early politico-legal developments of modern Singapore. When the 1954 Constitutional Commission of Singapore (better known as Rendel Commission) was appointed by Governor Sir John Nicoll in July 1953 to undertake a comprehensive review of the constitution of the Singapore colony, Mr. C F Smith, a senior partner of the Firm, was one of the Commission’s non-official members.
The Firm used to have offices in Malaysia at Johor and Kuala Lumpur, and in Sabah at Jesselton (now known as Kota Kinabalu) and Sandakan until the Promulgation of the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance No. 30 of 1970 prohibiting lawyers who were neither citizens nor permanent residents from practising in West Malaysia.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Firm’s senior partners Mr. Antony Purdon Godwin and Mr. Wu Chang-Sheng (better known as C S Wu or Fred Wu) count among the giants in the local Litigation Bar. The late Mr. Wu, son of renowned plague fighter Dr. Wu Lian-teh (who is credited for modernising China's medical services and medical education), was particularly renowned for his expertise in construction arbitration. Godwin and Wu were also founding members of the Council of the Singapore Advocates and Solicitors Society (precursor to the Law Society of Singapore) in 1967. Mr. Henry Mosley Dyne, also a former senior partner, was regarded a giant in the Chancery Bar until his retirement in 2000. Mr. Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who needs no introduction, was also briefly a partner of the Firm in the early 1970s.
From the mid-1970s to the 1990s, the Firm has grown three-fold into a full service law firm.
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