ABSTRACT
Glasgow had for some time been a center of business instruction. In 1695 the Town Council had appointed an instructor of navigation, bookkeeping, arithmetic, and writing. A half century later a teacher formerly of London had taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and merchants’ accounts at his home, boarding some of the pupils. William Gordon is said to have been the son of Cosmo, Duke of Gordon, by a French lady whose marriage to him was not recognized in Britain, a reputed lineage that is mentioned again below. By 1763, at the latest, Gordon and James Scruton were conducting a mercantile academy in Glasgow. They were soon joined by Alexander Jack, a writing master also interested in bookkeeping, and Robert Dobson, previously an independent teacher of that subject. In 1766 the Scots schoolmaster published The general counting-house and man of business, a text that was “[a]lmost identical” with the second volume of The universal accountant.
