The ICAEW Library & Information Service holds a rich collection of material on the history and development of the accountancy profession, including a collection of online resources.
Use our Guide to historical resources to discover the material and tools available to help you trace the history of the profession, the evolution of accounting practice and the lives of accountants.
Alternatively, try the options below to view the different strands to the collection, or use our A to Z of historical resources.
Accountancy practices
Resources to help you trace the history of accountancy practices
This guide is intended to provide a guide to the resources available from the ICAEW Library & Information Service that can be used to trace the history of a firm.
Chartered accountants in England and Wales- a guide to historical records is an essential work for anyone interested in tracing the history of accounting firms and the profession in England And Wales. The book is based around a survey of the archives of accounting archives conducted by the ICAEW in 1991 and 1992.
A series of simplified family trees showing the development of the big accountancy firms of the day. The series is a key resource for accounting historians grappling with the tangled history of mergers and demergers in the accountancy sector.
An index to obituaries, biographical profiles and photographs to help researchers tracing their family history or who are studying the history of accountancy firms.
London has played an important part in the history of accounting. The purpose of this brief guide by Professor R.H.Parker is to show clearly those places in and around the City of London which are of interest to accounting historians.
Index of UK and Irish accountancy and professional bodies
This index provides information on professional associations, bodies, societies and institutes in the UK and Republic of Ireland that are related to the accountancy profession.
An index to obituaries, biographical profiles and photographs to help researchers tracing their family history or who are studying the history of accountancy firms.
The accountants' directory for 1877 provides a snapshot of the membership of the first professional bodies for accountancy in the 1870s, just a few years before the establishment of the ICAEW.
A collection of articles and resources that can help with research into members of your family or firm who served during the First and Second World Wars.
The collection of the ICAEW Library & Information Service holds a range of biographical sources that provide an insight into the profession throughout the years
Trying to trace an ancestor or relative who was an accountant? The ICAEW Library & Information Service has produced a short guide for genealogists to highlight some of the resources that are available.
A study of practising accountants listed in London trade directories published before 1840, which provides an insight into the number of accountants practising in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in London. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the author, Peter Boys.
The book 'With the colours; a list of Chartered and Incorporated Accountants and their Clerks who are serving with the British Forces on land and sea, 1914-1916' reproduced the lists of names previously published in The Accountant.
The identity of 'The Institute Lady' and the meaning of the coat of arms surrounding her is raised from time to time by curious members - and understandably so, as it can seem hard to imagine what connection the matronly figure with a ships rudder has to the Institute of Chartered Accountants...
The respected accounting historian Peter Boys has prepared a series of chronological lists charting the Presidents, Vice Presidents and Deputy Presidents of the ICAEW from 1880 to 2005.
The article, The mystery of the missing members: the first 600 Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, by Peter Boys, is of particular significance to the early history of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
The structure of the ICAEW examination system and the names of examinations have changed over time, which makes it a hard task to track down past examinations. In this knowledge guide we aim to help you track down the examination papers and their associated publications through the years - with guidance on where you can find online resources for recent and current examinations.