Ethel Ayres Purdie:Critical practitioner and suffragist

The pursuit of critical accounting practice is explored through the life of Ethel Ayres Purdie (1874–1923), certified accountant and militant suffragist. Drawing on an array of primary and secondary sources the study explores the arenas in which Ayres Purdie sought progressive change, particularly in relation to the taxation of married women and the exclusionary policies of the accounting establishment. The diverse structures and media vehicles which she utilised to disseminate competing discourses are examined. Further, this biographical study reveals that the construction of a clientele by early women accountants relied substantially on sisterhood – female solidarity borne of common experience in patriarchal society and a determination to challenge its institutions. The injustices suffered by women clients provided case data which a critical practitioner such as Ethel Ayres Purdie could use to dispute official narratives. The paper illustrates how the professional services which women accountants offered to feminist organisations represented an important, if largely unexplored, contribution to the suffrage movement in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain

Accounting in history

Recent studies of publication patterns in accounting history portray a myopic and introspective discipline. Analyses reveal the production and dissemination of accounting history knowledge which focus predominantly on Anglo-American settings and the age of modernity. Limited opportunities exist for contributions from scholars working in languages other than English. Many of the practitioners of accounting history are also shown to be substantially disconnected from the wider community of historians. It is argued in the current paper that interdisciplinary history has the potential to enhance theoretical and methodological creativity and greater inclusivity in the accounting history academy. A practical requirement for this venture is the identification of points of connectedness between accounting and other historians. An analysis of publications with accounting content in Historical Abstracts reveals increasing interest among historians in the history of accounting. This substantial literature incorpo­rates sites largely unfamiliar to accounting historians, such as Eastern and Central Europe and Central and South America. Historians also communicate their findings on accounting in a variety of languages. Subjects particularly deserving of interdisciplinary research engaging accounting and other historians include accounting in agricultural economies, the institutions of pre-industrial rural societies and diverse systems of government

From the editor

In recognition of the mutual advantage to be gained by engaging with the broader community of historians, a new section of The Accounting Historians Journal, Interfaces,\u27 has been established. The object is to reconnoitre literature in history for emerging themes with implications for research directions, theoretical perspectives and methodologies in accounting history. Cheryl McWatters, Reviews Editor, has commissioned a number of exploratory essays, the first of which, by Linda Kirkham and Ann Loft, appears in this number. It is envisaged that the Interfaces\u27 section will also contain reviews of periodical literature in history which is pertinent to accounting historians

Early challenge to the accountant stereotype? The accountant as hero in late Victorian romantic fiction

Recently, increasing attention has been focused on how conventionalised images of the accountant were created (Bougen, 1994). As the recent contribution to the Notebook by Boys (1994) reveals, previous to the dominance of the visual media (Beard, 1994), a potentially fruitful source of evidence of stereotyped representations of accountants is the novel. The Accountant by F.H. Mel (1894), is a rare instance of a work of romantic fiction which had as its central character an accountant

Tonal instability: Tone as part of the feature geometry

From the introduction: In this paper I present an analysis of Kagate tone, within an autosegmental framework (Goldsmith 1976). The principal focus is the phenomenon of tonal instability, which occurs as the result of a compensatory lengthening process: In [figure] (1) the vowel of the suffix loses its melodic quality, and takes instead the melody of the previous vowel. Crucial to the topic of this paper, the tone of the suffix is simultaneously lost. [...] To account for both the tonal stability and the tonal instability facts, I propose that the location of tone within the overall geometry is subject to parametric variation. Otherwise, if tone must be directly associated to the skeleton, then we cannot elegantly account for the tonal instability facts. Therefore I conclude that tone in Kagate is associated to the Laryngeal node, as part of the Feature Geometry (Clements 1985). This is a natural assumption to make, since Kagate is among the languages where tone register is closely related to the laryngeal feature [+Spread Glottis]

From the editor

I take this opportunity to report on recent developments and thank all who continue to support AHJ. The current issue contains an Autobiographical section. Richard Vangermeersch ([email protected]) is guest editing a special section on International Congresses of Accounting to coincide with the theme of the World Congress of Accounting Historians in 2004. I am delighted to announce that the editorial board have decided that the prize for the best paper in Volume 29 be awarded to Alan J. Richardson for his article on Professional Dominance: The Relationship Between Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting, 1926-1986