The firm, Britain's biggest standalone listed fund firm by assets under management, was forced to defend its plan last month to elevate its former chief executive to chairman, a move which critics say runs counter to the principles of corporate governance in the UK.

Both Dobson and Philip Howard, Schroders' senior non-executive director and the man charged with searching for a replacement chairman when Andrew Beeson announced his plans to step down, sought again to defend their decision at the AGM.

Responding to the criticism, Howard said the firm had consulted with the top-10 largest shareholders and considered their opinions before making the move, and had put in place plans to improve the independence of the board.

Dobson said he would lead a review of the board over the next few months and the firm intended to appoint two new independent non-executive directors by the end of the year.

Majority owned by the family whose name the firm has borne since it was founded more than 200 years ago, the scale of the vote was nevertheless greater than that seen for any of the board appointments at the previous year's AGM.

One of those to vote against the firm's appointment of Dobson was Hermes EOS, which said despite his significant contribution to the firm during his time as CEO this did not justify the move.

Howard also received a hefty investor rebuff, with 11.80 percent of the votes cast by independent shareholders opposed to his re-election, although support from the family meant just 5.09 percent of total votes cast were in opposition.

The vote follows a string of protest votes at the annual meetings of other companies, largely around management pay, after a year in which many firms had seen profits dip. While Schroders escaped relatively unscathed, with 4.29 percent of votes cast against its pay report, it was up from 3.1 percent the year before.

Earlier on Thursday, Schroders had reported a rise in assets to a record 324.9 billion pounds ($473.57 billion), boosted by currency gains and demand for its funds from institutional clients.

($1 = 0.6861 pounds)

(Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Sinead Cruise)

By Simon Jessop