Munich Personal RePEc Archive Creative accounting in the British Industrial Revolution: Cotton manufacturers and the ‘Ten Hours’ Movement. Toms, Steven and Shepherd, Alice University of Leeds 15 November 2013 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/51478/ MPRA Paper No. 51478, posted 16 Nov 2013 16:02 UTC Creative accounting in the British Industrial Revolution: Cotton manufacturers and the ‘Ten Hours’ Movement. By Steve Toms* & Alice Shepherd (University of Leeds) *Correspondence Steven Toms Professor of Accounting, Joint Editor, Business History Leeds University Business School Room 2.09, Maurice Keyworth Building University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT Tel: 44(113)-3434456 Email:
[email protected] Word count: 10,200 Creative accounting in the British Industrial Revolution: Cotton manufacturers and the ‘Ten Hours’ Movement. Abstract The paper examines an early case of creative accounting, and how, during British contrastindustrialization, to much ofaccounting the prior wasliterature, enlisted which by the argues manufacturers’ that entrepreneurs interest tomade resist poordemands, use of led accounting by the ‘Ten techniques hours’ movement, in the British for limiting industrial the revolution, working day. the In paper shows that there was considerable sophistication in their application to specific purposes, including political lobbying and accounting for the accumulation of capital. of accounting to resist the threat of regulation of working time in textile mills. It explainsTo why illustrate accounting lobbying information behaviour, became the paper so important examines in entrepreneurs’ the debate over use factory legislation. In doing so, it shows that a significant element was the accounting evidence of one manufacturer in particular, Robert Hyde Greg, which had a strong impact on the outcome of the parliamentary process.