History

Celebrating key milestones in our development

When you’ve been around for over 120 years, it’s only natural that you’d have a story to tell. Here are a few highlights in the Trust story as we grew from a single office in downtown Melbourne to offices throughout Australia and southern Asia.

1885
In this year a sudden inflow of wealth from the Victorian goldfields was instrumental in establishing a trustee company based on similar structures already established in South Africa. Known as The Union Trustees, Executors and Administrators Company Limited, it was incorporated in Victoria for two purposes:

• To act as a trustworthy agent to hold and manage businesses and financial assets for families of varying individuals travelling back to England for long periods
• To take on the role of executor/administrator of a deceased estate.

The first directors were John Blyth, Robert Jonathan Jeffray, The Hon. Henry Cuthbert, Henry Nicholas Loughnan, Francis Henty and Nathan Thornley.

1889
Four years later The Union Trustee Company of Australia Limited was amalgamated from a number of other companies. These were:

• The Australian Natives Trustees Executors and Agency Company Limited
  
• The Colonial Permanent Trustee Executor and Agency Company Limited
• Guardian Trustees Executors and Agency Company Limited
  
• The Union Trustees Executors and Administrators Company of Australia Limited 
  

1890
This amalgamation quickly resulted in the company expanding interstate to establish an office in Queensland. 

1911
Skip forward a couple of decades and a steady period of growth leads to the construction of the company’s first office building, The Union Trustee Building, at 333 Collins Street, Melbourne.

1914
Three years later the first office in New South Wales is opened and The Union Trustee Company of Australia Limited becomes the first trustee company to be incorporated in three states.

1957
Trust has always played an active role in helping the community. In the fifties Australia’s most prestigious and internationally acclaimed literary award, The Miles Franklin Literary Award, for which we continue to act as trustee, was first awarded to Patrick White for his novel Voss. The gala event was opened by Sir Robert Menzies.

1962
In this year the company amalgamated with The Fidelity Trustee Company Limited to become The Union-Fidelity Trustee Company of Australia Limited.

1965
This is the year the Portia Geach Memorial Award, Australia's prestigious portrait prize for female artists, was first awarded to Jean Appleton for her painting Self Portrait.  We continue to act as trustee for this important Australian award as well.

1970
A few years later we are appointed trustee for The Westgate Bridge Education Fund for the dependants of those workers that died in the collapse.

1985
To celebrate the company’s centenary we launch the Centenary Foundation.  Now known as the Trust Foundation, for over 20 years this perpetual charitable trust has helped to care for, maintain, support and educate Australians of all ages. 

1988
In the late eighties we change our name to Trust Company of Australia Limited (“Trust”).

2002
Now into the new millennium, Trust merges with Permanent Trustee Company Limited to become one of the largest trustee companies in Australia.

2006
As a leading specialist in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), recently Trust expanded this business within the Institutional Services division into the Singapore and Hong Kong markets. Reflecting this expansion, we changed our registered name to the current Trust Company Limited.