Identifying the founding fathers of public accountancy: the formation of The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh

Despite histories of the early Scottish accountancy bodies (e.g., Brown, 1905; Stewart, 1977; Walker, 1988; Kedslie, 1990a, 1990b), there has been little research in depth to identify the small group of men who felt compelled to form the first professional organization in 1853 (The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh [SAE]). This paper describes the sequence of formation events and meetings in 1853 and 1854, and identifies those individuals most closely involved with the planning of the SAE. The main achievements of the study are to record the men and events of the SAE formation in a detail not previously attempted, and to demonstrate the elitist nature of the formation. The overall conclusion is that the emergence of the SAE in the mid-nineteenth century was as much the creation of a social elite as it was an economic monopoly.