Accounting, Religious Identity, Control and Discipline in the Quaker Lead Company, c.1800–c. 1860

Abstract

Business histories of Quaker firms have generally presented them as enlightened employers and providers of industrial welfare. Quaker labour management and industrial welfare practices during the British Industrial Revolution (BIR) have been relatively neglected by accounting and business historians We conduct a ‘macro’ study of the roles of accounting in labour control and discipline and the provision of industrial welfare during the BIR in the religious, social and institutional contexts of the Quaker Lead Company. The research draws upon literature and data which present divergent views of the Company’s employment practices. The research finds that the historical construction of Quakers as enlightened employers and industrial philanthropists must be viewed with much caution. There was little that was uniquely and distinctively ‘Quaker’ in the Company’s approaches to labour control and discipline and its use of accounting in these respects.