Our history

Maclntyre Hudson was founded in 1880 and is today a top 20 independent accountancy firm. When the firm was founded it was one of 587 firms that joined together to form the original ‘lnstitute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales’ – and one of only a handful still in practice.

As is common in business, the firm has merged and demerged many times as dictated by market forces and circumstances. Today we practice as a Limited Liability Partnership, have 10 offices serving the whole of the UK, are part of and we are the UK member of Morison lnternational lnc, a global association of independent accountants, auditors, tax advisers, business consultants and lawyers. We are a founder member of MHA, a national association of independent accountancy firms.

The name Maclntyre Hudson appeared for the first time in 1924, after Robert Hamilton Maclntyre and John Farrer Hudson became partners in the firm. The firm was then known as Maclntyre Hudson Gouldie Wilson & Co, which was shortened to Maclntyre Hudson in 1928.

We opened a Paris office the same year which remained until the sixties, when legislation made it no longer viable. Apart from our office in Paris, the first office to be opened outside of London was the Bedford office in 1959. In 1968 we merged with Norman & Whitehead of London and opened an office in Wellingborough two years later.

Through a number of mergers during the following two decades we grew our existing practice in Bedford and gained offices in Richmond, High Wycombe, North London, Leicester and Peterborough. We also opened new offices in Milton Keynes and Northampton.

In 1991 we demerged from the Central London office which continued to practice as Maclntyre & Co. Our Northampton office acquired the business of Messrs Ford and Moser and a presence in Daventry in 1994 and a year later we re-opened an office in Wellingborough due to merger with Phillips and Halliday located in the town. This was later closed again in 2001 when staff and clients transferred to our new Northampton office premises. We had done the same with our office in Richmond which had closed the year before when staff and clients were transferred to the larger London City office.

Our most recent mergers were in 1999 with the nine partner practice, Hughes Allen Chartered Accountants, which re-established the name of Maclntyre Hudson in the City of London and brought us an office in Chelmsford. In 2007 our Leicester office merged with Moore Stephens Leicester, doubling the firm’s business in the area. In 2008, our London City office merged with the London office of MGl Midgley Snelling and acquired a block of fees from Websters. In late 2009, the London City office merged with the West End office of Haines Watts and we opened an office in Rochester.

In early 2010, we became the UK member of Morison International, a global association of independent accountants, auditors, tax advisers, business consultants and lawyers. November 2010 saw the launch of MHA, a national association of independent accountancy firms, of which MacIntyre Hudson is a founder member.

In the summer of 2010, we merged with Coppards, a small accountancy practice in London's West End focusing on the media and entertainment industry.

2011 saw a merger with Gotham Erskine, a leading London accountancy practice specialising in charities and the voluntary sector.

We now have 52 Partners and 450 staff across our 10 offices.

Key dates