William Marwood was a shoemaker from Horncastle who in 1869 made his mind up to become an executioner and eventually became the chief executioner for London and Middlesex from 1874 until 1883, he always said 'I am doing God's work according to the divine command and the law of the British crown. I do it simply as a matter of duty and as a Christian. I sleep soundly as a child in my bed and never am disturbed by phantoms. When I get out of bed on the morning of an execution I kneel down quietly and ask God's blessing on the work I have to do, and ask mercy for the prisoner, I have a sense of divine mission and a belief that regardless of what deeds the condemned man has perpetrated in his time, he deserves to be dispatched as painless as possible.' It was Marwood who set out a table of "drops", calculated by the weight of the condemned, of between six and 10 feet that, together with the careful placing of the knot under the left ear, would guarantee "almost instantaneous" unconsciousness with death following very rapidly thereafter. Marwood was the first English executioner to refine the "long drop" which was already being used in Ireland, it meant an end to the convulsions and struggling that witnesses saw before Marwood's time, when death occurred from strangulation. He was also credited with the invention of the split trapdoor. He dispatched one hundred and eighty men and women during his twelve years as executioner. Born of poor parents he became known throughout England and Ireland as the 'Gentleman Executioner'. He would tap his victims on the shoulder, shake them by the hand and say 'Come along with me I shall not hurt you'. In justice to Marwood it may, however, be stated that in many cases criminals are described as dying instantaneously by his method of execution; and instances are not wanting of the hard death by means of the short drop, as in Calcraft's day.

This book is an oral history of the auditing profession in Britain from 1920s to the present day based on extended extracts from interviews with 77 past and present practitioners. Those interviewed ranged from a nonagenarian who qualified in the 1920s, to active contemporaries, from sole practitioners to the present day heads of the Big Five accounting firms. The often candid interviews uncover a surprising variety of experience and opinions and allow a group of often fascinating individuals to tell their own stories.

The rise of the British accountancy profession from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and the world-wide success of its accountancy firms, were to a large extent based on the growth of the audit function. This book explores the history of the audit process in Britain, demonstrating that the characteristic features of the auditing industry are a diversity in practice based largely on the different types of clients the auditors serve. The book examines the innovation that was brought about by the staggering developments in information technology which have been seen over the last few centuries. This comprehensive history will be a useful reference tool for accounting, business and economic historians and will also be an enlightening read for all those with an interest in auditing procedures.

The leading professional accounting bodies in Britain today boast more than a quarter of a million qualified members and accountants are moving into top management positions in increasing numbers. Accountants have become the foremost professional grouping in British business management. The Priesthood of Industry documents the rise of the accountancy profession, from the handful of accountants listed in the trade directories of the major cities in the late-eighteenth century to the huge commercially-oriented firms of the late-twentieth century. The authors focus on the individual: the professional accountant, and adopt an economic determinist analysis to explain the rise of public practice and the transfer of staff to industry in increasing numbers. They also consider the routes through which this transfer of skills took place, and identify demand and supply side factors to explain the professional accountant's present hegemony in business management.

The collapse in the US of Enron and Worldcom, together with their auditors, Arthur Andersen, has focused the public spotlight on the company audit and made it a highly controversial aspect of the accountant's work. In Britain, the recent legal action by Equitable Life against Ernst and Young is only the latest in a long line of scandals at BCCI, Maxwell, and the Barings bank, among many others. "A History of Auditing" for the first time lifts the lid off the work of the auditors, and details how historically they have got themselves into the present situation.
The book draws on new evidence generated by a postal questionnaire and oral history among auditors both past and present, together with an analysis of company reports and exhaustive use of contemporary textbooks and articles, making frequent frequent comparisons with American practice. The resulting history traces the evolution of the auditing process from its leisurely Victorian beginnings where armies of clerks checked and ticked everything in their client's books, to the transformation in the 1960s when, with the growing scale of clients auditing became more a matter of checking a client's systems rather than the records themselves. The changes in the 1980s are also documented when because of the growing pressure on audit fees from clients meeting the threat of global competition, auditors began to put their faith in such nebulous techniques as risk assessment. Alongside all these changes auditors also had to cope with the advent of computerization which robbed them of the audit trail.
This comprehensive history will be a useful reference tool for accounting, business and economic historians and will also be anenlightening read for all those with an interest in auditing procedures.