Knobel Kevin P Builders

When Charles Coffee Russell established his law practice in Wollongong in 1885, the colony of New South Wales was less than 100 years old and Wollongong was a small town serving the farming communities of the Illawarra. Its main industries were farming, timber-cutting and fishing. Coal mining was starting to boom, but the steel industry that was to transform the region was still four decades away. The venerable Mr Russell had not long arrived from Belfast, where he had studied at Queen's University and practised law before emigrating with his family to New South Wales, and settling in Corrimal. Within days of opening his practice he was advertising in the Illawarra Mercury that his was "the office for obtaining probates, letters of administration etc)." The firm that was to grow into a partnership called Russell McLelland Brown was off and running.