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Recent Research in British Accounting History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Abstract
British historians appear to have surpassed their American contemporaries in recognizing the importance of developments in accounting theory and practice in shaping the course of business. Students of British accountancy today enjoy increasing institutional support and have published several impressive works. From these and other sources it is possible to construct an outline of the background of British (and, more particularly, Scottish) accountancy which reveals much of interest to American scholars.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955
References
1 A survey of published research is available in the writer's “Notes on Accounting History,” Accounting Research (Jan., 1950), pp. 275–80.
2 This contrasts with the general apathy to accounting history which prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic when the writer's monograph The Profession of Accountancy in England was published in 1942 by the American Accounting Association.
3 A happy exception was the Business Historical Society which jointly with the American Historical Association heard a paper titled “Research in Public Accountancy” at its Dec, 1949, meeting; reprinted in Bulletin of the Business Historical Society (March, 1950). This landmark was attained through the efforts of Professor N. S. B. Gras to stimulate a joint discussion of business history and accounting history.
4 English Accountancy, 1800–1954: A Study in Social and Economic History (London, 1954)Google Scholar.
5 In 1933 Sir Carr-Saunders, Alexander and Wilson, P. A. wrote The Professions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933)Google Scholar, which provides an excellent starting point for anyone seeking proper perspective and an over-all picture of British professional development. A more recent book is Professional People in England, written by Roy Lewis and Angus Maude, published by the Harvard University Press in 1953.
6 Also see Sir Laurence Halsey's 1938 Dickinson Lecture “The Position of the Public Accountant in Relation to Business and Government in Great Britain.”
7 James Kilpatrick, a partner of the London firm of Deloitte, Plender, Griffiths & Co., prepared Some Notes on the Early Days of the Firm (London, 1942)Google Scholar, and it is understood that another partner is now engaged in writing a full history of Deloitte's. However, additional materials on the firm exist in SirCutforth's, ArthurRandom Reminiscences (London, 1951)Google Scholar; the collection of Lord Plender's speeches edited by his wife (London, 1951); and the writer's “Lord Plender: A Vignette of an Accountant and His Times,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society (March, 1953), pp. 1–25.
8 Published by the firm in London in 1952.
9 A History of the Hall of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (London, 1953)Google Scholar.
10 Wilson, Charles, The History of Unilever (London, 1954, 2 vols.)Google Scholar. Also see Ernest Cooper's paper “Fifty-Seven Years in an Accountant's Office,” which describes his experiences from his arrival in London in 1864 with 10 shillings in his pocket, to senior partnership of Cooper Bros., and to the presidency of the English Institute. Reprinted in The Accountant (21 Oct. 1921), pp. 553–63.
11 Fifty Years — The Story of The Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants, 1904–1954 (London, 1954)Google Scholar.
12 Co-ordination has been considered by British professional bodies since the 1890's, a Departmental Committee reporting against it in 1930, while coordination negotiations between 1943 and 1949 proved unsuccessful. However, Section 161 of the Companies Act, 1948, stated that no person shall be qualified as an auditor of a company (with the exception of “exempt private companies”) unless he is a member of one of the five accounting bodies or is authorized by the Board of Trade. In addition, Section 20 of the Industrial and Friendly Societies Act, 1948, restricts eligibility for appointment as an approved auditor to members of these five professional bodies in Great Britain.
13 A History of the Chartered Accountants of Scotland from the Earliest Times to 1954 (Edinburgh, 1954)Google Scholar.
14 See The Records of a Scottish Cloth Manufactory at New Mills, Haddingtonshire, 1681–1703, edited by Scott, W. R. (Edinburgh, 1905)Google Scholar.
15 In 1777, James Scruton, a well-known Glasgow bookkeeping teacher, published The Practical Counting House; or Calculation and Accountantship Illustrated in All Cases that Can Occur in Trade, Domestic or Foreign, Proper or Company. After detailing a series of complicated transactions on joint account, the author concludes that the adventurers “put the above materials into the hands of an accountant, for a true state of their affairs, in order to reach a settlement with each other which is now required.”
16 The firm served as auditors of the Caledonian Railway in Glasgow, the North of Scotland Bank in Aberdeen, and many business enterprises in England and Ireland.
17 The Bank had been formed in 1839 with a total capital of £1 million, but it had not been able to take advantage of the limited liability feature of the Companies Act, since the formation of the Bank antedated these acts. At the time of its collapse, it had 133 branches, more than 1,200 proprietors, over £8 in deposits, and about £800,000 of note circulation.
18 See Obituary Notice of James Haldane in The Accountants' Magazine (Dec, 1906), pp. 544–49.
19 Additional discussion will be found in the writer's “The Victorian Age of Accountancy,” The Chartered Accountant in Australia (Sept., 1954), pp. 131–40.
20 Lockhart, John G., Lockhart's Life of Scott (New York, 1914), VI, 223Google Scholar.
21 Haldane was one of two Chartered Accountants (the other being Edwin Waterhouse, senior partner of the London firm of Price, Waterhouse & Co.) appointed to the 1894 Company Law Amendment Committee. Many of the recommendations of this Committee were included in the Companies Act of 1900.
22 The Matador Land and Cattle Co., comprising 8 million acres, second only to the King Ranch in size in the United States, was sold by its Scottish owners to Lazard Bros. & Co., Ltd., in 1954.
23 These careers may be contrasted to that of an English Chartered Accountant who practiced in the United States from 1901 to 1911. See “Arthur Lowes Dickinson: Pioneer in American Professional Accountancy,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society (April, 1947), pp. 27–38; and “Arthur Lowes Dickinson: English Gentleman and International Accountant,” a series of articles appearing in The Accountant from 26 July to 20 Sept. 1947.
24 Copious reference is made to Sir John Mann by Garner, S. Paul in Evolution of Cost Accounting to 1925, University of Alabama, 1954Google Scholar, and by Solomons, David in Studies in Costing (London, 1952)Google Scholar.
25 Sir Frederick J. Alban, “Socialization in Great Britain and Its Effects on the Accounting Profession,” reprinted in Proceedings of the American Institute of Accountants, 1948. Also see the writer's “Nationalization of British Industry,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science (May, 1952), pp. 146–61.
26 Examples are Burroughs Adding Machine Co., Coca-Cola Co., Thomas A. Edison, Inc., Hoover Co., International Business Machines Corp., and U. S. Time Corp. These companies followed the tradition of Babcock & Wilcox, started in Scotland in 1897, and Singer Sewing Machine Co., set up in the 1860's and now the largest plant in the company's world-wide organization.