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A comparative analysis of the relative occupational status of lawyers and accountants in nineteenth-century England and Wales

ABSTRACT This study looks at the relationship between accounting and legal practitioners in nineteenth-century England and Wales through the application of comparative, sociological occupational-status metrics to observe the changing relative social status positions of these disciplines from 1821 to 1911. The study uses an approach to attributing occupational status based on the methods developed by Nam and Powers utilising existing nineteenth-century datasets to assign status to a range of occupational groupings. The data generated measures of relative occupational status and the magnitude of the differences, along with the education and earnings status metrics, for the occupational groups labelled Accounting and Legal, both prior to and after the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The measurements of relative status confirm the impact of changing legislation and a better-educated workforce on the status of the élite of accounting and the pressure they felt to professionalise their activities to differentiate their status from the burgeoning educated workforce attracted to accounting as an occupational discipline.