Sir Frederick John Alban (11 January 1882 – 2 May 1965) was a chartered accountant, administrator, and writer.

Biography

He was born and grew up in

Abergavenny Abergavenny (; cy, Y Fenni , archaically ''Abergafenni'' meaning "mouth of the River Gavenny") is a market town and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. Abergavenny is promoted as a ''Gateway to Wales''; it is approximately from the border wi ...

, attending the National School until the age of 12. His parents both died when he was still a child, and he was brought up by a relative whilst his older brothers went out to work. Soon after a move to

Pontypridd () (colloquially: Ponty) is a town and a community in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Geography comprises the electoral wards of , Hawthorn, Pontypridd Town, 'Rhondda', Rhydyfelin Central/Ilan ( Rhydfelen), Trallwng (Trallwn) and Treforest (). The ...

at the age of seventeen, he began training in accountancy. He placed first in final examinations of the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants in 1914, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and the

Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors The Society of Incorporated Accountants, founded in 1885 as the Society of Accountants, was a professional association of accountants in England. It was known from 1908 to 1954 as the Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors, and from 1954 t ...

. After working for the United Water Board of Pontypridd and Rhondda for a short time, he was employed by the Welsh National Insurance Commission and the Ministry of Food in Wales. He established the firm Alban & Lamb, chartered accountants, with Norman Ernest Lamb in Newport and Cardiff. He was President of the Society of Incorporated Accountants in 1947. A critic of

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

, he gave a speech to the American Institute of Accountants in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and another to the Charter Institute of Secretaries in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, Canada, saying that the process had been "bungled" in the UK and had not done the

coal industry Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when de ...

any good. He also stated that the creation of the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

meant that "incentive is gone".

Published works

*''Rating Accounts and Finance under the Rating and Valuation Act'' (F. J. Alban, Norman E. Lamb, and F. E. Price, 1925) *''Socialisation in Great Britain and its Effects on the Accountancy Profession'' (F. J. Alban, 1954).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alban, Frederick John Welsh non-fiction writers British accountants 20th-century Welsh writers Welsh civil servants 1882 births 1965 deaths People from Abergavenny