Editorial

This issue of Accounting History comprises five articles, a book review and a number of calls for papers. The book review is the first to appear in the journal since the last round of books reviews that were published in NS Vol.3, No.2, 1998. Terry Heazlewood is the Editor of the current series of

Increasing interest is being shown within the accounting history community in the formation and activities of bookkeeping and similar associations in the period before the advent of "modern" professional accounting associations. One such body, the Bookkeepers' Beneficial Association of Philadelphia (1874), is the subject of a study by Romeo and Leauby. The advent of such bodies, including combined associations of accountants and clerks, constitute a "signal of movement" by an occupational group towards occupational ascendency. Importantly, the emergence of associations of this genre should not be advertently or inadvertently misclassified as pre-professionalisation developments in accounting and, accordingly, be couched as irrelevant or unimportant in charting the history of the profession. Romeo and Leauby position the Bookkeepers' Beneficial Association of Philadelphia as a discrete step in the professionalisation of accounting in the United States and map the association's decline and dissolution as it became increasingly marginalised as larger and more elite competitors developed during the twentieth century.

Scholars in accounting history are also increasingly exploring accounting and its impacts on "voices from below" in various historical contexts. The monetary valuation of people, who were described and treated as slaves, as financial assets on US and British West Indian plantations serves as the focus of attention in the study by Fleischman, Oldroyd and Tyson. These authors seek to explain why this exercise was undertaken and the processes involved. Their contribution positions accounting and accountants as facilitators in a repressive regime and poses moral issues for consideration within what is often, and narrowly, regarded as the technical domain of accounting.

Craig, hgartaigh and hgartaigh examine the involvement of four Irishman in the commercial affairs of Sydney in the Colony of New South Wales during the period 1788 to 1818. The study provides evidence of how these Irish emigrants, comprising a teacher, an accountant, a bank depositor as well as a bank official, both brought their backgrounds with them and how they were constrained by their origins as well as their consequent positions in the hierarchy of colonial society. The activities of these four colonists serve to elucidate an era of unregulated accounting in an emerging "new world" country under settler capitalism.

Hooper and Kearins present their second paper in a series which deals with the financing of the Colony of New Zealand. The first instalment on this topic appeared in NS Vol.8, No.2, November 2003 and dealt with the period 1840 to 1859. This second contribution specifically investigates the period 1860 to 1880 and examines the wealth tax effect of Maori land confiscations introduced under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, followed by requisitions of land under the Public Works Land Act 1865. The authors argue that such Acts were a means of extracting assets from Maori, under what may now be described as a "land grab" campaign, and effectively constituted a means of imposing taxation obligations heavily upon a single ethnic group among others within the Colony.

Derogatory remarks made about accountants by Justice Quain in August 1875 in a bankruptcy matter being heard at the Summer Assizes at Bristol, England, are examined by McClelland and Stanton in the context of the professionalisation of accounting. While the case itself was of a pedestrian nature, the Justice's comments were reported upon in the Daily Telegraph and subject to rebuttals in the accounting press. In their analysis of this case and its implications, the authors cast further light on the struggle by accountants for professional recognition and the tension between the accounting profession and the legal profession over jurisdiction in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Special thematic issues of Accounting History are scheduled to appear in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The respective calls for papers are published in this issue. Scholars around the globe are encouraged to contact the respective guest editors, where applicable, to express an interest in contributing to the assembly of these issues.