Bailey Shaw and Smith, solicitors, London (5 Berners Street)

The Portland (London) Collection is so named to differentiate it from the Portland (Welbeck) Collections also held by Nottingham University. Although some of the Collection concerns property in London, the name derives from its chief creators, the firm of Baileys, Shaw and Gillett, London solicitors to successive Dukes of Portland. The bulk of the papers were generated in the course of their work on behalf of various members of the family, but particularly the 3rd-6th Dukes of Portland and their trustees as clients of the firm.

Bailey, Shaw and Smith was established in 1836 at 5 Berners Street, London. It became Bailey, Shaw, Smith and Bailey in 1847 and settled on its final title in 1875. It disappeared by amalgamation into Speechley, Bircham and Company in 1997, having moved from Berners Street in about 1990. The firm acted as solicitors to the Dukes of Portland from the mid-1830s. Until that time the legal business of the dukes had been carried out by agents in London, corresponding with stewards on the dukes' estates. Papers relating to pre-1830 business were clearly inherited by Bailey, Shaw and Smith and form part of the archive.

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