Donaldson & Burkinshaw LLP is the oldest independent law partnership in Singapore. Established on 6 November 1874, it is a heritage law firm with a history of more than 140 years. Today, the firm is a medium-sized full-service law practice. The founders The Firm's founders, Alexander Muirhead Aitken, Alexander Leathes Donaldson and John Burkinshaw, were British expatriates who had come to Singapore in the 19th century when the island was a British Crown Colony. At the time, the development of Singapore Colony’s legal profession, jurisprudence and public life was still in its early stages. The Colony's population then consisted mainly of native Malays, and Chinese and Indian immigrants, who worked as fishermen, rubber-tappers, merchants, coolies, warehouse and port workers, and labourers. The founders were acknowledged as outstanding members of the legal profession, as stated in the book One Hundred Years of Singapore, which was commissioned by the Singapore Centenary Committee on the Settlement's centenary. When the first local Bar Committee was formed in 1875 to assist the Attorney-General in looking into matters affecting the local profession and practice etiquette, Alexander Leathes Donaldson was one of only three persons invited to sit on the Committee. Subsequently, in 1907, the Bar Committee was made a statutory body by the Courts Ordinance, providing the genesis for the modern Law Society of Singapore. The Jeddah, 1881 The Jeddah was a high-profile admiralty suit involving the abandonment of a steamship, the S.S. Jeddah, by her captain and crew. At the time of her abandonment, the S.S. Jeddah was carrying about 778 men, 147 women, and 67 children on board, in addition to considerable cargoes. Alexander Leathes Donaldson and John Burkinshaw both acted for the salvor, the S.S. Antenor. The abandonment, salvage of, and subsequent litigation surrounding the S.S. Jeddah would later inspire Joseph Conrad to pen his epic novel, Lord Jim, first published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. The novel has since been made twice into films bearing the same title, Lord Jim, in 1925 (Paramount Pictures, directed by Victor Fleming), and 1965 (Columbia Pictures, directed by Richard Brooks). The Second World War By the time of the Second World War, the Firm boasted an impressive list of banks, companies, and merchants in Singapore as its clientele. However, this flourishing practice was interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities, at which time the firm's documents and deeds were fortuitously