The history of Raworths

The early years of Raworths

In June 1885 Edwin Raworth, the son of Richard H Raworth, a Harrogate builder, qualified as a solicitor and a year later was practising on his own from an office close to the present Yorkshire Bank in James Street, Harrogate.

Shortly after Edwin Raworth started his practice Jabez Butterworth (the grandfather of one of the present partners) joined him. He was given his articles and in 1905 qualified as a solicitor. He and Edwin Raworth became partners in 1911. Edwin Raworth was the first Clerk to the Harrogate Borough Justices and also Clerk to the School Board and Jabez Butterworth was actively involved in formulating the 'modernisation' of conveyancing law which became the Law of Property Act 1925. Jabez Butterworth had a distinguished Army career, being awarded the OBE in 1918.

Following Edwin Raworth's death Raworth & Co amalgamated with the firm of Lomas-Walker & Wilkinson (whose partners were James Lomas-Walker and James Wilkinson) the new firm being called Raworth, Lomas-Walker, Butterworth & Wilkinson. Their office was at Westminster Chambers, 87 Station Parade, Harrogate and in 1933 they moved across the road to our premises, Eton House. They hoped that they were not moving 'too far out of town'!

The involvement of the firm in local affairs continued, Jabez Butterworth following Edwin Raworth as Clerk to the Harrogate Justices to be followed when he died in 1948 by William Ernest Woods. James Wilkinson was Clerk to the Pateley Bridge Justices from the early 1920's and was also succeeded by W E Woods. J Taylor Wilkinson in 1925 and Jim Butterworth (sons of the previous partners) joined the partnership in 1939 and 1949 respectively. The firm's name was shortened to Raworths in the 1960's. During the 1960s, Anne Taylor trained with Raworths and then became a partner, at that time she was one of only a small band of female partners in solicitors practices; she continued to work with us until her retirement in the mid 1990s.

Knaresborough

In 1971 Raworths succeeded to the business of Wallace Gill & Son in Knaresborough upon the retirement of William Wallace Gill, the grand-nephew of the founder of that firm, and had a branch office at 50 High Street, Knaresborough until 2008.

Knaresborough is a far older town than Harrogate and had its establishment of lawyers long before the hamlets of High and Low Harrogate were amalgamated and became the Borough of Harrogate. In 1825 Matthew Gill was the first member of the Gill family to qualify as a solicitor. Wallace Gill, the nephew of Matthew (and himself the son of a solicitor) founded the firm and was succeeded in turn by his son and grandson and finally by his grand-nephew William Wallace Gill, who qualified in 1930. For a great number of years the Gill solicitors were Clerks to the Claro Justices and pillars of the community in Knaresborough.

The IT revolution

Raworths have been pioneers for a very long time. We adopted the telephone so early that our number was "Harrogate 35". In the 1950s we also installed the first Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX) in Harrogate and acquired the the telephone number 66666. Our use of modern information technology started in the early 1970's with one of the first word processors in the North of England - the text was stored on punched tape! From the early 1980's we had accounting and time recording systems and we made early use of technology to provide IT-based fee earning services through our debt collection system which ran on a Burroughs mini computer. Raworths' IT pioneering started so early that we donated our third word processor to the Science Museum in London, which even by that time was a rare example of an early stand alone WP machine; it was the size of a large desk and only had a single line screen!

Expansion and change

In the mid 1980's the firm had expanded to a size where it was necessary to extend the office, to the rear of Eton House in Harrogate, and in June 1987 we opened our upgraded and expanded offices just in time to celebrate the centenary of Edwin Raworth founding the firm.

During the 1990s strong winds of change blew through the legal profession. There were ever increasing pressures to compete and become more businesslike, together with a demand for increased levels of specialism. There were also other changes in government policy and legislation that directly affected the legal world. The Legal Aid system, which had been with us since the 1940s, was substantially reduced in scope, as part of the government's, inappropriately named, "Access to Justice" changes, and in 1999 further fundamental changes were made to the way the civil courts operate and litigation is conducted, with the introduction of the Civil Justice Rules. There also started to be talk of e-conveyancing, 'paperless offices', other e-delivery of legal services, etc..

In 1994 we acquired the practice of Edward Hanson, in Knaresborough, on his retirement; he having previously acquired the practice of Messrs. Newstead Walker and Crann.

During the late 1990s the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) techniques to resolve disputes started to develop in UK as an alternative to conventional litigation. Raworths were pioneers in this field with Christopher Butterworth and Zoe Robinson being early practitioners of the use of mediation for resolving Civil & commercial, and family law, disputes respectively. Because of this Raworths has become one of the premier mediation practices in the North of England. 

Recent times

By the late 1990s Raworths had transformed itself into a modern legal business. This involved substantial investment in integrated IT systems, the adoption of 'practice management standards' (Lexcel and Legal Services Commission franchises), accreditation as an Investor in People (IIP), our joining a national grouping of law firms, LawGroup UK, and the introduction of other new management and organisation structures.

By the dawn of the new millennium every member of staff had a computer on his or her desk linked to the firm's network, practice and case management systems. We were also routinely using email, and had our website, and web access; culminating in broadband connection to the internet in 2002.

We have restructured our professional teams to specifically cater for the different professional and practical needs and priorities of the business and private client. We have over a period of time substantially increased the number of our partners and staff by bringing in new lawyers to increase the breadth of our expertise.

The 21st century has brought further changes with Raworths optimising the areas of work dealt with and developing increased specialisation. Substantial investment has been put into developing and expanding our Commercial Team to cater for the changing needs of business clients and to bring to the Harrogate District a level of service which many businesses have believed was only previously available in nearby cities.

In 2006, taking advantage of changes in the law to allow more modern and responsive business structures, the partnership transferred the business of Raworths to Raworths LLP.

in mid 2008 we made the further strategic decision to close our Knaresborough branch office and centre our operations around Eton House in  Harrogate.  Having expanded beyond the capacity of Eton House alone we also took additional space immediately across the road, in the recently refurbished Clarendon House, into which we moved our corporate and commercial property Units.

The past as a platform for the future

Raworths is the premier firm of solicitors in North Yorkshire and the Harrogate District, and we value our proud past and good reputation, as these provide the sound foundation for our future development.

We have many loyal clients, old and new, and although the world about us is changing and challenging we will take the best we can from the past while making necessary changes and seizing opportunities to go into the future. It is unlikely that the legal profession in general, or Raworths in particular, has ever operated in such 'interesting times'.