Before PwC, before Coopers & Lybrand, there was Cooper Brothers.....

Long before the merger of Coopers and Lybrand and Price Waterhouse created the firm we now know as PwC,  Coopers was originally called Cooper Brothers.

The firm was originally based in Gutter Lane, London. Indeed they may have been the only building with an address identified as being in Gutter Lane.

Legend has it that at one stage the partners wrote to the Corporation of London suggesting that in view of their long tenancy it might be appropriate to rename the place Coopers Lane.

The Corporation, so the story goes, wrote back saying "as we've been here longer why don't you change your name to Gutter Brothers."

Post script: I was told a while back that when, much more recently, the Corporation was selling off at auction the old City street signs, Coopers & Lybrand bought the Gutter Lane set.