For anybody with an interest in local history, the following outlines the formation of Swarbrick Dixon, a firm with origins over 110 years old.

The original forerunner to the firm was a legal practice set up by W McGregor-Hay before 1890.

Within a short time he was joined by Arthur Swarbrick and then also Arthur's brother when the firm became Swarbrick & Swarbrick.

Hamilton City was really only established on the east side of the river, but the BNZ moved over to the west side to the site on the corner of Hood Street and Victoria Street where the old building is still situated. Swarbrick & Swarbrick decided that being situated next to a bank was the ideal position and they quickly took up a tenancy in the old Argus Chambers building next to the BNZ. A branch office was opened at Te Awamutu and the two offices were run as one firm for about 70 years. The firm remained in that Dickensian atmosphere until 1972 when they took up a much more luxurious appointment on the 7th Floor of the then new NZI Building in Garden Place.

Arthur ran the Hamilton office and his brother ran the Te Awamutu office.

They each had one son who took up law and joined the firm. Arthur's son joined him in the Hamilton office and his brother's son, H A Swarbrick, joined his father in the Te Awamutu office. They each had a son who followed in their father's footsteps. Arthur Swarbrick (another one) joined his father Fred Swarbrick in Hamilton. Roger Swarbrick joined his father H A Swarbrick in Te Awamutu. Each office therefore now had a third generation in each branch of the family who had carried on the legal tradition.

In 1955 Jeff Dixon joined the firm and when he became a partner in 1958, he was the first non-Swarbrick partner the firm had had for nearly 70 years. Within a couple of years, they decided it was no longer a strictly family affair and the two offices split to become separate practices. The Te Awamutu firm retained the name Swarbrick & Swarbrick and the Hamilton firm after a short time became Swarbrick & Dixon. However the firms retained a close liaison, partly because of the family history and partly because the Hamilton firm undertook a large amount of agency, stamping, registration and Court work for the Te Awamutu firm.

Roger Swarbrick's son, Richard, joined him in the Te Awamutu firm to complete a 4th generation but Arthur Swarbrick had no children interested in pursuing the law and the lineage for the Hamilton office stopped there.

Mr John Allen joined the firm in about 1963, coming from a private sole practice. He became the principal litigation partner for the firm, although Mr J T Dixon was largely responsible for the prosecutions, planning and general advisory work, for the Hamilton City Council building up a substantial and widely respected expertise in that area.

Partly as a result of being an early firm in the area, both the Te Awamutu and Hamilton offices acted for various local bodies for a great length of time. Swarbrick Dixon in Hamilton still acts for Hamilton City and Health Waikato, but have acted for a large number of others at various times, some of which have now gone out of existence as a result of restructuring and amalgamation.

Arthur Swarbrick (jnr) died in 1970 leaving Mr J T Dixon and Mr J E S Allen as the remaining partners, shortly to be joined by a very young Deryck Walter. After two years as a staff solicitor he became a partner in 1971 at which time the firm became known as Swarbrick Dixon Allen & Walter.

The firm was located in the NZI Building from 1972 until 1987 when it relocated to the Bryant Trust Building (now Vero House) in Alexandra Street where it remains today.

A branch office was opened in Raglan in 1975 operating between 1.00pm and 4.00pm each Thursday afternoon and has been managed and run exclusively since then by Michael Dixon who became a partner in 1975.

The firm has gone through some evolution in recent times, peaking at a maximum of six partners, but now having four partners.

Mr Allen retired from the firm in 1980 to go out as a Barrister sole and was subsequently appointed a Queens Counsel. The firm has supplied five presidents of the local District Law Society in its history and the Swarbrick family name has been prominent in Hamilton for many years, lending its name to Swarbrick Park, Swarbrick Landing and the lake gates at the entrance to the scenic drive around Lake Rotoroa.

The current partners are Deryck Walter, (the only present partner to have actually been in practice with one of the Swarbrick family), Michael Dixon (the son of the late Mr J T Dixon, who was the first non-Swarbrick partner), Mike Bracken (a partner since 1997) and Dorothy Thresher who joined the firm in Apil 2007. The firm now has a total of 9 support staff including staff solicitors presently employed and has retained its lengthy association with the Hamilton City Council, maintaining its significant and exclusive expertise in those areas. However, as a result of the firm's general expansion, the private clientele has been substantially increased in recent times, particularly in the areas of Resource Management, Employment Law, residential and commercial conveyancing, estates, trusts and asset planning.