Reviewed by Kenneth O. Elvik Iowa State University
A Short History of Accountants and Accountancy is a reprinted collection of Arthur H. Woolf’s revised articles, which were first pub¬lished in the journal, The Accountant, and later published in book form by Gee & Co., London. The author proposes, as a central con¬cept, that accounting reflects the level of sophistication of the society in which it exists, and builds the content of his book around that idea. Since the book is divided into four parts, I shall discuss each part separately.
In Part I, the author examines the attempts which were made to organize commercial data in ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and among other Near Eastern peoples, including the Hebrews. The scribe is identified as the “accountant of the ancient world.” Present-day re¬searchers will be interested in the citations from history texts and ancient records, including those of the Greeks and Romans to 476 A.D. The author concludes that there is no ground for suggesting that these ancients understood double-entry bookkeeping. He con¬siders the Dark Ages “singularly barren and uninteresting” and sees Charlemagne’s administrative controls as a direct predecessor to those of the English manors of the thirteenth century. The admin¬istration of the Royal Treasury, or Exchequer, is regarded as the first effort toward “scientific accounting” in England. There are numer¬ous and interesting attempts made in the book to find derivations and uses for such terms as the “Pipe Rolls” and “Account of the Comptroller of the Royal Wardrobe.” He refers to surveys both be¬fore and after the Domesday Book, and the role of keeping accurate records in the management of manors is illustrated by quotations from thirteenth century treatises on the subject and by references to specific records. The author is understandably perplexed by an in¬ability to find anything but the most rudimentary accounts of German merchants, particularly in view of their relatively advanced mercan¬tile achievements. He finds accounts in France very orderly, but notes that Italy provides the more significant developments.
In Part II the author mentions a book by Benedetto Cotrugli, which was supposedly completed, but not published, before that of Paciolo. He devotes eight pages of this section to quoting Paciolo’s text. A number of sixteenth century Italian texts are noted, and attempts are made to trace the adoption of Italian methods by German and Dutch authors. Paciolo’s methods are then traced to England. Woolf concludes that English and American accountants were free to develop their systems to match the growing sophistication of com¬merce due to a lack of “legislative enactments,” which in other nations forced a conformity in keeping “specific books in a pre¬scribed form.”
Part Ill, entitled “Origin and Progress of Auditing,” consists of a single, brief chapter referring mainly to earlier chapters.
“Rise and Progress of Professional Accountants” is the title of Part IV. Here the author attributes the failure to identify accountants in the Italian census to the possibility that they were included with mathematicians. He describes an early association of accountants (ca. 1581) and its accomplishments in Venice, and traces the history of accountants in Scotland and England. Associations in the colo¬nies and in the United States are also briefly mentioned. According to Woolf, the Companies Act of 1862 was spoken of as “the account¬ants’ friend.” In the final chapter of the book, Woolf sees the exclu¬sion of “undesirables” from the profession as the foremost prob¬lem in the field of accounting. Woolf’s remedy is legislation, and he reflects disappointment at the failure of a bill in the House of Commons. He is also concerned about the relatively low status of accounting in educational institutions and suggests that a “School of Accounting” be started at the University of London with offerings similar to those of the University of New York. The author sees a need for a code of ethics similar to that of the bar association. Other concerns include a hint at the identification and perseverance of independence.
There are two appendices. Appendix A is a quote from the “First Report of the Commissioners of Public Accounts,” dated October 8, 1831. Appendix B identifies court recognition of the professional ac-countant in Uruguay, as early as 1825, and some instances of early legislation. There is a bibliography of material available at the In¬stitute library and other identified locations and a fourteen-page index.
The book should be useful to researchers interested in the history of accounting and contains views on topics still under discussion today, e.g., accounting relative to its environment (developing nations) and schools of accounting.
(Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 2, 1976)
