Accountancy Ancestors: Achievements, tragedy and disaster

Sydney Edmund Busher became a member of the Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors in 1910 and emigrated to Sydney, Australia, shortly afterwards. Mr Busher later became managing director of the firm W. E. Smith, Ltd. The obituary in Accountancy (1953, 280) reported that Mr Busher had been a 'promising English county cricketer' and that he had twice bowled W. G. Grace in a single match.

Samuel Culley had, as The Accountant aptly described it, 'an adventurous and remarkable career'. In 1841 Samuel travelled out to New Zealand as a colonist but was forced to return to England for family reasons. Mr Culley made the voyage home from Auckland as second mate on board an American whaler which had already endured one mutiny. It was to prove a far from easy passage home, including a three day storm and at point the whaler was almost shipwrecked. Mid-way through the voyage the Captain was said to have lost his reason and 'there was a renewed outbreak of the mutiny, which Mr. Culley at length repressed by seizing the ringleaders and putting them in irons' (Accountant 1899, p89). Samuel Culley was feted as a hero. Samuel Culley went on to become City Accountant in Norwich, a post he held from 1887 to 1898.

Gerard Van de Linde entered the accountancy profession in 1875 and became a member of the ICAEW in 1880. He wrote a memoir about his career and obituaries of him and his family members appeared in Accountancy.

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One of the most poignant obituaries in the database is that of Nathaniel Dixon who died on Thursday March 30th 1899 whilst travelling with his daughter on the channel steamship Stella in the week before Easter. The Stella was travelling at full speed from Southampton to Guernsey through a fog that had settled on the channel when she hit the Casquets, a group of rocks near Alderney in the Channel Islands. The Stella disaster claimed the lives of 77 passengers and crew (out of 190 on board).

The Incorporated Accountants' Journal (May 1899, p157) tells us that 'After the ship had struck on the rocks and orders had been given to save the women and children, Mr. Dixon assisted his daughter to fasten on a life belt and saw her taken into one of the ship's boats, he himself remaining quietly on the ship until she went to her doom.'

Another accountant, Maurice Black, also died in the Stella Disaster and his obituary appears in The Accountant (1899, p407).

M. C. McEwan was admitted to the Edinburgh Society of Accountants in 1888. M. C. McEwan had been 'one of the leading rugby players in Scotland' (The Accountant 1899, p460) and represented his country from 1886 to 1892. In 1891 he captained the Scottish team to victory over England at Richmond by three goals to one.