IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acbsfi/v9y1999i1p29-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'A sort of guide, philosopher and friend': the rise of the professional auditor in Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Josephine Maltby

Abstract

This paper considers the legal and financial context in which professional audit emerged in Britain during the nineteenth century. It concludes that an important contributing factor to the rise of the audit profession was its provision of advice on prudent accounting, which represented a distinctive competence. The capture of a jurisdiction over business advisory services from the legal profession involved, however, a relationship of complicity with management and large insider investors the interests of social capital- to the exclusion of small investors, who were stigmatized as 'speculators'.

Suggested Citation

  • Josephine Maltby, 1999. "'A sort of guide, philosopher and friend': the rise of the professional auditor in Britain," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 29-50.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:9:y:1999:i:1:p:29-50
    DOI: 10.1080/095852099330359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/095852099330359
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/095852099330359?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Watts, Ross L & Zimmerman, Jerold L, 1983. "Agency Problems, Auditing, and the Theory of the Firm: Some Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 613-633, October.
    2. Armstrong, Peter, 1987. "The rise of accounting controls in British capitalist enterprises," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 415-436, August.
    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. Edwards, John Richard & Anderson, Malcolm & Chandler, Roy A., 2007. "Claiming a jurisdiction for the "Public Accountant" in England prior to organisational fusion," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-2), pages 61-100.
    3. Lee, T.A. & Clarke, F. & Dean, G., 2008. "The dominant senior manager and the reasonably careful, skilful, and cautious auditor," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 677-711.
    4. 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.
    5. Joyce, Yvonne, 2014. "Knowledge mandates in the state–profession dynamic: A study of the British insolvency profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 590-614.
    6. A. C. Storrar & K. C. Pratt, 2000. "Accountability vs privacy, 1844-1907: the coming of the private company," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 259-291.
    7. Billings, Mark & Capie, Forrest, 2009. "Transparency and financial reporting in mid-20th century British banking," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 38-53.
    8. Toms, Steven, 2015. "Fraud and Financial Scandals: A Historical Analysis of Opportunity and Impediment," MPRA Paper 68255, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Valerio Antonelli & Raffaele D?Alessio & Emanuela Mattia Cafaro & Michele Bigoni, 2019. "The Pope and the Train: Financial Reporting Practices in the Railroad Companies of the Papal States (1846-1870)," CONTABILIT? E CULTURA AZIENDALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(2), pages 7-34.
    10. Josephine Maltby, 2001. "Second thoughts about ' Cases in Auditing '," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 421-428.
    11. 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.
    12. Christopher Humphrey, 2008. "Auditing research: a review across the disciplinary divide," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 170-203, February.
    13. Malcolm Anderson, 2000. "Accounting History Publications 1999," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 385-393.
    14. Channuntapipat, Charika & Samsonova-Taddei, Anna & Turley, Stuart, 2020. "Variation in sustainability assurance practice: An analysis of accounting versus non-accounting providers," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    15. Janette Rutterford, 2012. "Valuing Equities in the UK and the US: Fashions and Trends," Chapters, in: Geoffrey Poitras (ed.), Handbook of Research on Stock Market Globalization, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Janette Rutterford, 2004. "From dividend yield to discounted cash flow: a history of UK and US equity valuation techniques," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 115-149.

    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. 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.
    2. Lamar Pierce & Jason Snyder, 2015. "Unethical Demand and Employee Turnover," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 853-869, November.
    3. Abdullah, Azrul Bin, 2018. "Company-specific characteristics and the choice of hedge accounting for derivatives reporting: Malaysian case," SocArXiv npa6v, Center for Open Science.
    4. Steve Fortin & Ahmad Hammami & Michel Magnan, 2021. "Re‐exploring Fair Value Accounting and Value Relevance: An Examination of Underlying Securities," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 57(2), pages 220-250, June.
    5. Kausar, Asad & Shroff, Nemit & White, Hal, 2016. "Real effects of the audit choice," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 157-181.
    6. Andy Lardon & Marc Deloof, 2014. "Financial disclosure by SMEs listed on a semi-regulated market: evidence from the Euronext Free Market," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 361-385, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Grisard, Claudine, 2014. "La formation de l'accountability en situations conflictuelles," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/13959 edited by Berland, Nicolas.
    9. Liwei Shan & Albert Tsang & Xiaoxue Zhang, 2024. "Transporting Audit Quality Across Countries: Returnee CEOs and Audit Fees," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(4), pages 845-874, July.
    10. Gus De Franco & Yuyan Guan & Yibin Zhou & Xindong Zhu, 2024. "The Impact of Credit Market Development on Auditor Choice: Evidence from Banking Deregulation," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 62(2), pages 589-634, May.
    11. J. Toms, 2001. "Information content of earnings in an unregulated market: the co-operative cotton mills of Lancashire, 1880–1900," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 175-190.
    12. Persakis, Anthony & Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2016. "Audit quality, investor protection and earnings management during the financial crisis of 2008: An international perspective," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 73-101.
    13. Ray Ball, 2009. "Market and Political/Regulatory Perspectives on the Recent Accounting Scandals," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 47(2), pages 277-323, May.
    14. Arrunada, Benito & Paz-Ares, Candido, 1997. "Mandatory rotation of company auditors: A critical examination," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 31-61, March.
    15. Kharuddin, Khairul Ayuni Mohd & Basioudis, Ilias G & Farooque, Omar Al, 2021. "Effects of the Big 4 national and city-level industry expertise on audit quality in the United Kingdom," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    16. Uddin, Shahzad, 2009. "Rationalities, domination and accounting control: A case study from a traditional society," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 782-794.
    17. Iwasaki, Ichiro & 岩﨑, 一郎, 2013. "What Determines Audit Independence and Expertise in Russia? Firm-Level Evidence," RRC Working Paper Series 27_v2, Russian Research Center, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    18. Sánchez-Ballesta, Juan Pedro & Lloréns, Mercedes Bernal, 2010. "Monitoring, reputation and accountability in issuing banks in mid-nineteenth-century Spain," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 403-419, October.
    19. Colleen Honigsberg, 2019. "Hedge Fund Regulation and Fund Governance: Evidence on the Effects of Mandatory Disclosure Rules," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 57(4), pages 845-888, September.
    20. Hautcoeur, Pierre-Cyrille, 2004. "Efficiency, competition, and the development of life insurance in France (1870-1939): Or: should we trust pension funds?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 205-232, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:acbsfi:v:9:y:1999:i:1:p:29-50. 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/RABF21 .

    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.