Our name
About our name
The name we have today comes from the merger of two firms – Harper Pascoe and Anthony Polson, in 1987, but our origins go back more than a century before that to 1865 in Christchurch. The city was still young, and there were many other firsts, including the first sitting of the Court of Appeal, Christchurch’s first murder trial and its inaugural A&P Show.
It was against this backdrop that the Harper side of the firm came to life. Leonard and George with another lawyer, Thomas Maude, to form Harper & Co.
The sign over the door evolved over the years to become Harper Son & Pascoe, Harper Pascoe Buchanan & Upham, and Harper Pascoe Buchanan & Penlington.
The lineage that brought us the Anthony name entered the picture a bit later, in 1903, when Archibald Henry Anthony formed Russell & Anthony in partnership with Thomas Gregory Russell. The pair took a break during World War I then came back to Christchurch and in 1936, Henry Anthony found a new partner in Jack Polson. Two decades later, in 1955, there was a new partner, John Robertson, and so another name change to Anthony Polson & Robertson. In 1977 the firm merged with Kerr McIntosh and Co and it was all the way back to Anthony Polson & Co. A decade later, the firm merged with Harper Pascoe, and Anthony Harper was born.