In the second half of the 19th century when Middlesbrough – Gladstone's "Infant Hercules" – boomed from a farmhouse to an important industrial town in the space of decades, solicitors played a significant part in the business and private life of the borough.
Among the solicitors of Middlesbrough, Stockton and Darlington were firms that, in 1990, amalgamated to make the present firm of Messrs Jacksons. Their history up to the Second World War is set out below.
Their history up to 1990, together with deeds and documents relating to the constituent firms of Messrs Meek, Stubbs & Barnley and the Meek family, have been deposited at Teesside Archives.
The dates in brackets after the names of practitioners are the dates of admission as a solicitor. I have set out some brief biographical details at the end of each section in which a solicitor first appears. They come from a variety of backgrounds and from across the country.
JACKSONS, MONK & ROWE
1876 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson (1876) first practising as Solicitor and Attorney at 42 Albert Road, Middlesbrough
1878 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson and his brother Francis Henry Jackson (1872) practising as Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough, Loftus and Saltburn
1892 Jackson & Jackson practising also at 61 Lincoln's Inn, London
1896 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson and Francis Henry Jackson with James Bell Stothart practising as Jackson, Jackson & Stothart at 23 Coleman Street, London and at Middlesbrough
1899 Philip Henry Monk (1898) with Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough and subsequently in London.
1901 Loftus practice sold to Henry Hoggart
1904 London office sold to Elwell & Binford Hole
1906 Philip Henry Monk a partner in Jackson & Jackson
1907 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson, Francis Henry Jackson, Francis's son Basil Jackson (1905) and Philip Henry Monk practising as Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough
Name of firm changed to Jackson & Monk
1920 Death of Basil Jackson from war wounds
1930 Death of Francis Jackson
1931 Retirement of Gilbert Jackson
1933 Herbert Edward Rowe (1928) partner in Jackson & Monk with Philip Henry Monk
1938 Firm became Jacksons, Monk & Rowe
