James Marwick

James Marwick (1862–1936) was a Scottish American and an original founder of an accounting office that became one of the Big Four accounting firms, KPMG.

Career Marwick was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1862. Marwick's father was Sir James David Marwick, an Orcadian who was Town Clerk of Glasgow from 1873 to 1904. The young Marwick qualified as a chartered accountant, and began his accounting practice in Glasgow, and travelled to Australia to conduct a bank examination for a group of Scottish investors during the Australian banking crisis of 1893.

Marwick later travelled from Australia to Canada and, impressed with business opportunities in North America and cultivating banking clients, he went to the United States in 1894 and began looking for a partner.

After opening Marwick, Mitchell & Company in New York, Marwick began traveling to other cities, opening offices all over the United States. Percy Garrett, who ran the London office, once wrote that the tireless Marwick travelled as many as 15,000 miles a year.