Lord Plender: A Vignette of an Accountant and his Times, 1861–1948

Only once in a generation, because of fortuitous circumstances, the stress of the period or the brilliance of a personality, a man lives a life of unusual service to his profession and to the commonweal. To the distinguished company of accounting immortals, William Plender is rightfully admitted because he, more than any other English practitioner, achieved in his lifetime wide recognition as a skillful interpreter of financial data as well as a faithful servant of the Crown. Plender's life has much to recommend it for study by the rising generation not only in Great Britain but in other parts of the world where accountancy has achieved the status of an honored profession. It is for this reason, alone, that the present memoir is written: to re-count the rise of one accountant in professional and public circles because of the quality of his mind and the force of his personality, to say, this was accomplished by one man; it can be done by others if they but dedicate themselves to the pursuit of the professional ideal wherever it may be found, in England, in America, everywhere.