UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LECTURE I. THE PROFESSION OF A CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT. Read before the Chartered Accountants' Students' Society of London 29th September, 1885. Chartered The profession of a Chartered Accountant cannot Lecture I. boast of greater antiquity in England than the 11th Profession of a May, 1880, on which day a Royal Charter, incorporating Accountant in the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and England. Wales, was granted by the Privy Council. For nearly fifty years previous to that date the duties now devolving upon the members of the newlycreated profession were performed by their predecessors, who, for want of a better title, were designated Public Accountants, and from whose ranks the first Chartered Accountants were recruited. Such also was the origin of the profession in In Scotland. Scotland; but in that country a Charter was granted to the practising Accountants more than a quarter of a century earlier. The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh was incorporated by Royal Charter on the 23rd October, B Lecture I. 1854; while the Institute of Accountants and Actuaries In Ireland. The Charter. Bye-Laws. Articled Clerks. in Glasgow was similarly incorporated on the 15th March, 1855, and the Society of Accountants of Aberdeen in 1867. The leading members of the profession in Ireland were incorporated by Royal Charter on the 14th May, 1888, under the style of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. Previous to the grant of the Charter in England, no qualification was required for the practice of a professional Accountant. Any person who chose was entitled to so practise without being required to show that he possessed any qualifications for the duties he thereby undertook to transact, and, as many adopted this profession, destitute alike of moral principles as of business capabilities, practising Accountants, as a body, fell into a certain amount of disrepute. The obtainment of the Charter was therefore welcomed, not only by the respectable practitioners, but also by the commercial world, who felt the great advantage of there being a recognised institution, from the members of which they might choose their professional advisers in matters of account, and to whom they might refer any question of difference. Since the recognised practising Accountants have been known as Chartered Accountants, admission to their ranks has been regulated by the Charter and ByeLaws of the Institute, and candidates are required to serve an apprenticeship on conditions similar to those which have prevailed for many years in the Solicitors' branch of the legal profession, by entering into Articles with a member of the Institute for five years, with the exception that to graduates of an University two years of service are dispensed with. As a consequence of the obtainment of the Charter, many have turned their attention to this new profession, and have entered into Articles of Clerkship with a |