Traditional accounting histories date the advent of sophisticated cost accounting from the mid-1880\u27s and credit American innovators of Frederick Taylor\u27s scientific management movement with conceiving the new practices. However, it is counterintuitive to think the entrepreneurs of the British Industrial Revolution would not have developed costing techniques, given their significant methodological advances in other economic areas, such as technology, capital accumulation, and marketing structure development. This paper reports the findings from a survey of surviving business records from twenty-five large industrial firms during the 1760-1850 period, concentrated in the dominant textile and iron industries. Substantial evidence of mature cost management has been found in eight major areas of activity
