Taking responsibility: the early demand for institutional action to define an auditor's duties

Abstract

SUMMARY Membership of a professional body was intendedto demonstrate not only the competence but alsothe honour of an individual practitioner. Thepotential conflict between public and privateinterests in the audit function dates back to theearly days of the organized profession. One role ofa professional accounting association is to protecttheir own and their members’ interests by issuingsome form of official pronouncements to guideboth suppliers and customers of auditing services.In modern times there is a need to provideevidence that the profession has standards whichreflect the public interest, whereas in earlierperiods this may have been taken for grantedgiven the personal qualities and standing of theprofession’s members. The paper examines thenineteenth century literature for signs of a demandfrom practitioners and others for some form ofinstitutional action on the question of the extentand conduct of an audit. The confusion about thepurpose of the audit and auditors’ responsibilitiespointed to a need for some authoritative definition.Litigation against auditors added a further spur forsome official statement of the duties of auditors.However, for a variety of reasons the accountingbodies during the nineteenth century were reluc-