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Lord Plender: A Vignette of an Accountant and his Times, 1861–1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Mary E. Murphy
Affiliation:
Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences

Extract

Only once in a generation, because of fortuitous circumstances, the stress of the period or the brilliance of a personality, a man lives a life of unusual service to his profession and to the commonweal. To the distinguished company of accounting immortals, William Plender is rightfully admitted because he, more than any other English practitioner, achieved in his lifetime wide recognition as a skillful interpreter of financial data as well as a faithful servant of the Crown.

Plender's life has much to recommend it for study by the rising generation not only in Great Britain but in other parts of the world where accountancy has achieved the status of an honored profession. It is for this reason, alone, that the present memoir is written: to re-count the rise of one accountant in professional and public circles because of the quality of his mind and the force of his personality, to say, this was accomplished by one man; it can be done by others if they but dedicate themselves to the pursuit of the professional ideal wherever it may be found, in England, in America, everywhere.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 Speech Day, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Dec. 16, 1919.

2 Remarks at the Chartered Accountants of Scotland Dinner, Edinburgh, Nov. 14, 1930, reprinted in The Accountants' Magazine, Dec., 1930, pp. 650–652.

3 “Observations on Half a Century of Business Life in the City,” The Accnuntant, Jan. 6, 1934, pp. 13–17.

4 “Accountancy—Reminiscences and the Future,” Address to The King's School, Canterbury, in evacuation during the war at St. Austell, 1943.

5 Presidential Address to the Chartered Accountant Students' Society of London, reprinted in The Accountants' Journal, June, 1922, pp. 65–68.

6 Speech Day, The City of London College, on the occasion of the eighty-third annual distribution of prizes and certificates, Dec. 18, 1931.

7 “Accountancy—Reminiscences and the Future,” op. cit.

8 Idem.

9 Idem.

10 London, Gee and Company (Publishers) Limited, 1951, pp. 23–24.

11 Quoted in The Accountant, Oct. 22, 1921, p. 545.

12 “Observations on Haif a Century of Business Life in the City,” op. cit.

13 Address as President of the Institute to the Sheffield Society of Chartered Accountants, reprinted in The Accountant, Oct. 8, 1910, pp. 474–481.

14 Reprinted in Proceedings, pp. 25–29.

15 See “Depreciation and Obsolescene from the Viewpoint of the Investor,” read by Plender at the Congress and reprinted in Proceedings, pp. 404–419.

16 Institute of Chartered Accountants Jubilee speech of Lord Plender, Apr. 30, 1930. A résumé appeared in The Accountant, May 10, 1930, p. 620.

17 Bird, Roland, “The Accountant's Seventy-five Years,” The Accountant, Oct. 1, 1949, pp. 345348.Google Scholar

18 Maiden speech in the House of Lords, June 22, 1932, reprinted in The Accountant, July 2, 1932, pp. 11–12.

19 Remarks at the Bankers' Dinner given by the Lord Mayor of London, Oct. 1, 1935, reprinted in The Accountant, Oct. 12, 1935, p. 514.

20 Address as President of the Institute to the Sheffield Society of Chartered Accountants, op. cit.

21 Speech Day, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-on-Tyne, op. cit.

22 Presidential Address to the Chartered Accountant Students' Society of London, op. cit.

23 The Accountant, Feb. 16, 1946, pp. 84–85.