‘A different army of the talented’: negative outliers in the rise of professionalism in Victorian public accountancy

Abstract

This paper studies two gentlemen-professionals as negative outliers in Victorian public accountancy to provide an alternative perspective on late nineteenth-century practitioners. The gentlemen-professionals are London chartered accountants James and William Waddell who fled to New York in 1883 when new bankruptcy legislation exposed their embezzlement of creditor funds. As gentlemen-professionals anxious to demonstrate their social class and status, the brothers are studied in insolvency practice in London and as expert accountants in New York despite local knowledge of their prior misbehaviour. The paper concludes social class and status provide a useful research lens with which to study Victorian public accountants.

Keywords:

• gentleman-professionals
• outliers
• public accountancy
• social class and status

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. An outlier is someone or something classified as significantly different from the population of which he, she or it is a part.

2. Lee (2002a, 2002b, 2009b) includes JW and WW in studies of British accountants migrating to America before 1914. Their fraud is described in Chandler, Edwards, and Anderson (2005) study of early disciplinary actions by the ICAEW and its founding bodies and Walker (2004b, 140 and 142) mentions JW in the affairs of the Institute of Accountants in London.

3. Archival sources relate to newspapers and other media providing a contemporary public record. Sources used in each section are listed in notes 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 23, 24, and 28.

4. The notion of gentleman-professional persisted in Britain into the twentieth century (Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933, passim) and is evident in American public accountancy of the 1930s (Richardson 1931, passim).

5. A pettifogger ‘implied a low, rascally, quibbling trickster' (Corfield 1995, 49).

6. Use of these variables in studies of Victorian accountants is explained in Anderson and Walker (2009, 31–38) and Edwards and Walker (2010, 1–9).

7. Sources are Ancestry, CJCLDS, Glasgow Directory, Jones's Directory, Life Guards, London Gazette, NRS, and Times.

8. Commissioned officers became bandmasters from the end of the nineteenth century (Life Guards).

9. The 1st Life Guards was and remains the senior regiment of the British Army (Life Guards).

10. In addition to sources in note 7, this section uses 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Parts 1 and 2, 19th Century UK Periodicals, and ICAEW.

11. Sources as per note 10.

12. Sources are nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers: Parts 1 and 2, Holt (2013), Lovesey (1979), and Times.

13. This site is now owned by Chelsea Football Club.

14. The AAA formed after years of rivalry between the AAC and LAC and remains the national body for organised athletics in Britain.

15. Sources are Times and London Gazette.

16. Sources are Economist, London Gazette and Times.

17. JWC may have provided services not requiring public notification (e.g. trust accounts and financial investigations).

18. Alison's audits included the National Alliance Assurance Company, Wheal Ellen Mining Company of South Australia, and Bank of British Columbia.

19. See Lester (1995, 307 and 310) for data relating to bankruptcies between 1870 and 1883.

20. There are insufficient data to determine fees for these services.

21. Composition and liquidation agreements in England increased from 7000 in 1872 to 14,574 in 1879 (Lester 1995, 194).

22. Walker (2004a, 57) reports 75.9% of 4519 bankruptcies for the year to 30 June 1879 in England involved composition liquidations and arrangements.

23. Sources are London Gazette and Times.

24. Sources are 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Parts 1 and 2, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Accountant, Economist, London Gazette, New York Herald and Times.

25. For details of the 1883 Act, see Lester (1995, 170–221). See also Walker (2004a) for a review of the 1869 and 1883 Acts and relations between accountants and lawyers.

26. Power to discipline members lay with the ICAEW council (Chandler, Edwards, and Anderson 2005, 833).

27. The bankruptcy of Richard Hooper and Sons began in 1878 and not 1867 (London Gazette 8/2/1878, 678).

28. Sources are Webster (1954) and the New York Herald.

29. There is no evidence in New York Herald advertisements that JW and WW held themselves to be chartered accountants.

30. WW passed the IAL oral examination for membership in 1871 (Chandler, Edwards, and Anderson 2005, 838–839).

31. No copy of WW's book can be found in public records.

32. Biographies of Yalden appear in Financial Record (August 1894, 8 and March 1905, 8) and Banking Law Journal (June 1896, 411).