Accounting Historians Journal, The

A Letter From a Teenage Accounting Clerk in 1846: A Hidden Voice in a Micro-History of Modern Public Accountancy

The principal purpose of a study is to report a hidden voice at an important juncture in the history of modern public accountancy. At the time of writing his letter, Alexander Thomas Nivin (1830-1918) was a junior and insignificant employee in a community of 96 public accountancy practitioners. Many of the latter were, eight years later, to form the Society of Accountants in Edinburgh and trigger a wider professional project that continues today on a global basis. The letter provides insights...

Contributions of Joseph Hardcastle to Accounting Theory

Joseph Hardcastle, born in England in 1827, is probably best known for being one of only three individuals to pass the first Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam in New York in 1896. Remarkably, he was just four months shy of his seventieth birthday and received the highest score of those that passed the exam Hardcastle was a regular contributor to various early journals about accounting in the US, and he became one of the foremost authorities of his time on the theory of accounting. Throug...

An Analysis of the Bursars' Accounts at Durham Cathedral Priory, 1278-1398

A study examines a sample of 13 accounts from the bursar's office at Durham Cathedral Priory covering the period 1278-1398. Sources of receipts, types of expenditure, and the format of the accounts have been described. An analysis of the accounts has allowed the calculation of the net surplus or deficit generated each year. This has revealed that once uncollected arrears have been excluded from receipts, the net surplus or deficit was of a very modest amount, and it appears that actual receip...

A Study of the Impact of Special Interest Groups On Major Tax Reform: Agriculture and the 1913 Income Tax Law

The testimony in Congress during the years 1909 to 1913 indicates that congressmen did consider agricultural taxation. Legislators who considered agriculture in the development of the tax laws generally grew up in or represented states with a higher than average percentage of farm population. Perhaps there were no specific provisions that overtly favored farmers until 1915, as Holland states, but the mere existence of an income tax instead of tariffs or property taxes is the result of some di...

Accounting for the Stamp Act Crisis

The purpose of a study is to examine a particular incarnation of taxation - the imperial stamp duty imposed by the British Parliament on the American colonies briefly from 1765 to 1766, the demise of which is referred to as the "Stamp Act crisis." The version of stamp duty imposed on the colonies bore strong resemblance to that in operation in Great Britain with some modifications to accommodate colonial conditions. By the middle of the 18th century, a stamp duty had become an accepted part o...

Professional Leadership and Oligarchy: The Case of the Icaew

Between 1880 and 1970, the Council of the ICAEW responded to membership requests for better representation by making changes to the constitution of the Council. These changes failed to alter the fundamental nature of the Council as a self-elective oligarchy substantially biased in favor of large London founder firms. This historically contingent but deep-seated characteristic of the Council was protected mainly through (1) continuous re-election of retiring members; (2) Council's control over...

Notes From the Editor