Southland's first lawyers

Invercargill's first qualified legal practitioner was William Stuart. The New Zealand Law Society's centennial history, Portrait of a Profession (Wellington, 1969), says Stuart was born in Edinburgh in 1823, arrived in Otago in 1858 and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor at Dunedin in 1862. "Conveyances were prepared by the firm of Stuart and Hare as early as May 1861. Hare probably did not stay in Invercargill very long, because when the Supreme Court records commenced in June 1863 Stuart was in partnership with one James Harvey, who opened an office in Invercargill on the site of the present Town Hall in August 1862. Harvey was born in Scotland in 1836 and like Stuart read law at Edinburgh University. He arrived in Auckland about 1861, and shortly afterwards went south to Invercargill, there to serve for over fifty years in his profession, serving as Southland District Law Society President several times. He was a member of the Provincial Council and at one time Provincial Solicitor." (page 352).

The first President of the Southland Law Society, Thomas Morell Macdonald (1835-1909), was born in Samoa, the son of a medical missionary. Educated in England he was articled in Auckland to Frederick Whitaker, admitted to the Bar in 1861, and in 1862 set up in practice in Invercargill. Soon afterwards he entered into partnership with William Russell. Macdonald was Provincial Solicitor from 1863 to 1867 and from 1864 until his death in 1909 was Crown Solicitor.