IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v37y2007i1p63-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accountants in late 19th century Britain: a spatial, demographic and occupational profile

Author

Listed:
  • John Edwards
  • Stephen Walker

Abstract

Recurring difficulties over defining occupational and professional boundaries in British accountancy are best understood by examining historical variations in the emergence and status of the population of accountants. The study uses census enumerators’ books for 1881 to construct a spatial, demographic and occupational profile of professional and non-professional accountants. It is shown that there were considerable geographical variations in the density of accountants. It is speculated that these variations reflected patterns in the feminisation of bookkeeping as well as socio-cultural differences in meanings of the title ‘accountant’, which were sustained by networks. Although accountants were most closely associated with commercial activity, the boundaries of the occupation remained obscure. The description ‘accountant’ embraced a multitude of employment statuses, the performance of diverse tasks and included specialist sub-occupations. Members of professional bodies comprised a small proportion of the total community of accountants in 1881. Further, there was a yawning divide between the status of professional and non-professional practitioners and there were also considerable variations in status within the chartered profession, between CAs in Scotland and England and Wales, and between the London elite and their lesser brethren in the provinces.

Suggested Citation

  • John Edwards & Stephen Walker, 2007. "Accountants in late 19th century Britain: a spatial, demographic and occupational profile," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 63-89.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:37:y:2007:i:1:p:63-89
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2007.9730060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2007.9730060
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2007.9730060?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthews, Derek & Anderson, Malcolm & Edwards, John Richard, 1998. "The Priesthood of Industry: The Rise of the Professional Accountant in British Management," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198289609.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Poullaos, Chris, 2016. "Canada vs Britain in the imperial accountancy arena, 1908–1912: Symbolic capital, symbolic violence," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-63.
    2. Sian, S. & Verma, S., 2021. "Bridging the divide: The rise of the Indian Accountant from 1900 to 1932," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    3. Anderson, Malcolm & Walker, Stephen P., 2009. "‘All sorts and conditions of men’: The social origins of the founders of the ICAEW," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 31-45.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fiona Anderson-Gough & Christopher Grey & Keith Robson, 2002. "Accounting professionals and the accounting profession: linking conduct and context," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 41-56.
    2. Walker, Stephen P., 2000. "Benign sacerdotalist or pious assailant. The rise of the professional accountant in British management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 313-323, April.
    3. Derek Matthews & Michael Peel, 2003. "Audit fee determinants and the large auditor premium in 1900," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 137-155.
    4. Nicolas Berland & Trevor Boyns, 2002. "The development of budgetary control in France and Britain from the 1920s to the 1960s: a comparison," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 329-356.
    5. Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, 2017. "Between Novelty and Fashion: Risk Management and the Adoption of Computers in Retail Banking," Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, in: Korinna Schönhärl (ed.), Decision Taking, Confidence and Risk Management in Banks from Early Modernity to the 20th Century, pages 189-207, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. John Edwards & Roy Chandler & Malcolm Anderson, 1999. "The ‘public auditor’: an experiment in effective accountability," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 183-197.
    7. McPhail, Ken & Paisey, Catriona & Paisey, Nicholas J., 2010. "Class, social deprivation and accounting education in Scottish schools: Implications for the reproduction of the accounting profession and practice," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 31-50.
    8. SAKO Mari & KUBO Katsuyuki, 2019. "Professionals on Corporate Boards: How do they affect the bottom line?," Discussion papers 19010, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Marc Flandreau & Geoffroy Legentilhomme, 2022. "Cyberpunk Victoria: The credibility of computers and the first digital revolution, 1848–83," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1083-1119, November.
    10. Sian, S. & Verma, S., 2021. "Bridging the divide: The rise of the Indian Accountant from 1900 to 1932," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    11. Kotb, Amr & Roberts, Clare & Sian, S., 2012. "E-business audit: Advisory jurisdiction or occupational invasion?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 468-482.
    12. Andrew Popp, 2000. "Specialty production, personal capitalism and auditors' reports: Mintons Ltd., c.1870-1900," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 347-369.
    13. Anderson, Malcolm & Walker, Stephen P., 2009. "‘All sorts and conditions of men’: The social origins of the founders of the ICAEW," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 31-45.
    14. Napier, Christopher J., 2006. "Accounts of change: 30 years of historical accounting research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(4-5), pages 445-507.
    15. James Foreman-Peck & Leslie Hannah, 2023. "Business Forms and Business Performance in UK Manufacturing 1871-81," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1222, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    16. Ramirez, Carlos, 2009. "Constructing the governable small practitioner: The changing nature of professional bodies and the management of professional accountants' identities in the UK," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(3-4), pages 381-408, April.
    17. Malcolm Anderson, 1999. "Accounting History Publications 1998," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 375-384.
    18. John R. Edwards & Malcolm Anderson, 2011. "Writing masters and accountants in England," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(6), pages 685-717, August.
    19. Stephen Walker, 2004. "Conflict, collaboration, fuzzy jurisdictions and partial settlements. Accountants, lawyers and insolvency practice during the late 19th century," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 247-265.
    20. Walker, Stephen P., 2016. "Revisiting the roles of accounting in society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-50.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:37:y:2007:i:1:p:63-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.