ABSTRACT
Keith Macdonald (KM) does admit that his source material is entirely secondary, based as it is upon the work of Brown and Stewart. However, at the time that he wrote his paper the highly relevant work of Jones was available and from that book he would also have found reference to a study by Kedslie which gives further information concerning the social characteristics of early Scottish accountants. Given the defective data on which KM's conclusions are based it is hardly surprising that they should be open to criticism. His argument that the method by which the younger Glasgow accountants invited the senior ones to form a society represents collective social mobility is unjustified by the facts. KM argues that 'the technique of closure was employed by accountants to gain the acceptability required to achieve market control. Finally KM suggests a hypothesis to explain the fact that professional formation in Scotland was earlier than in England.
