Professionalisation is a major research focus of accounting historians, with particular attention paid to circumstances attending the formation and spread of accounting associations. This paper adds a new dimension to such research by examining the failure of public accountants to create a...

British-based studies of the education of aspiring accountants have principally confined attention to developments following the formation of professional bodies. This paper examines educational provision during the early modern period which broadly coincides with the rapid commercial expansion...

This study addresses the attempts by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) to set its professional boundaries based on the performance of work in order to create a definition of the specialist chartered accountant or 'public expert in matters of account'. The...

Departmental and central government accountability to the UK Parliament was based principally on cash transactions for a period of over 300 years commencing with the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Beginning in the second decade of the nineteenth century, recurrent proposals for the replacement of...