Willans was established in 1947 by Alec Willans. He moved from Clarence Street to Imperial Square in 1954 despite warnings from fellow businessmen that "it’ll never work – it’s much too far out of the town centre”.
28 Imperial Square housed the whole firm for 37 years, until the early 1990s when, expanding rapidly, we jumped at the chance to take the adjacent building when it became available. We have continued our steady growth, acquiring 24 Imperial Square in January 1998 and 34 Imperial Square in 2002.
From the early 1960s, the firm went through a number of mergers and resulting changes of name: Willans & Co in 1961, Willans & Gyles in 1975 and Willans Stannard & Davey in 1987 following mergers with Davey Jones & Co and Stannard & Moss, reverting to Willans in the early 1990s.
The firms of John Yeend, John Todman and Lester Maddrell have been incorporated into Willans over a period of years.
Following John Yeend’s sudden death in 1997, plans to amalgamate the two firms were accelerated and took place immediately. Former coroner Lester Maddrell transferred his private practice to Willans and became a consultant in February 2002. John Todman also transferred his practice and joined Willans as a consultant in January 2003, two years before his untimely death.
Willans became a limited liability partnership on 1 June 2008.
