ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises the findings of managerial accounting techniques in major British Industrial Revolution enterprises. For each of the firms represented here, an archive of business records does exist. A majority of extant Industrial Revolution business records are oriented toward financial accounting. The chapter provides qualitative assessments of costing practices discovered to have existed during the British Industrial Revolution. In evaluating these methods we do establish frequent linkages to contemporary practice and modem idiom. Industrial Revolution entrepreneurs used accounting techniques to maintain inventory control. Inventory costs were carried at standard almost universally and frequently flowed through work-in-process prior to product completion. The comprehensiveness and variety of cost management practices during the British Industrial Revolution attest to their high priority with industrial entrepreneurs. The innovative genius of British entrepreneurs was not confined to their well-documented technological advances, but extended to their approach to cost management in a dynamic and competitive environment.
