Robert Hiester Montgomery - Legacy

Legacy

In 1957 Cooper Brothers & Co (UK), McDonald, Currie and Co (Canada) and Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery (US) merged to form Coopers & Lybrand. For the rest of the century Coopers & Lybrand was known as one of the "Big Eight". On 1 July 1998 the worldwide merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand created the current PricewaterhouseCoopers. PricewaterhouseCoopers is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms.

Montgomery established a collection of pine trees at his home in Greenwich, CT. In 1953 he donated his estate to the town and it is now a 102 acre park in the center of Greenwich. In commoration of his donation a cultivar of the Colorado spruce was named Picea pungens 'Montgomery' in his honor.

Montgomery collected manuscript account books and documents which illustrate and document the history of accounting and business procedures from the 14th century into the 20th century. He donated his collection to Columbia University in 1926. These books constitute the Montgomery Collection at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in the Butler Library at Columbia University. The materials from his collection were featured in a 1987 Rare Book and Manuscript exhibit at Columbia entitled "The Origins of a Great Profession."

The Montgomery Botanical Center was established in 1959 by Nell Montgomery Jennings in memory of her husband, Colonel Robert H. Montgomery, and his love of palms and cycads. Located on 120 acres in Coral Gables it includes the largest and finest private collections of palms and cycads in the world.