Cash Flow and Corporate Finance in Victorian Britain: Cases from the British Coal Industry 1860-1914 - Hardcover

The authors are to be complimented on having undertaken a heavily labour-intensive exercise in a painstaking and meticulous manner. * The European Accounting Review, Vol. 10:1 * The value of this study lies in its innovative approach to the use of company annual accounts by historians. This approach, which involves the preparation of cash flow statements as a tool for understanding how company activities have been financed, has general applicability: it can be used for companies in any sector and for years since 1914. * Business History *

This monograph presents a methodology based on the concept of cash flow and produces, in tabular form, annual cash flow statements for a sample population of twenty companies in coal, iron and steel from their respective formation dates to 1914. For the benefit of the non-accountant, a detailed example showing the means by which these figures are derived is included, together with an analysis of the development of the financial reporting process through the second half of the nineteenth century. The book adds a new dimension to the analysis of corporate performance over a long period and offers a valuable database which will facilitate further research. It is an unusual and useful collaboration between accounting historians and economic historians.