John Manger Fells (1858 – 7 December 1925) was a British incorporated accountant consultant, and author on accounting. He was known as promoter of

cost accounting Cost accounting is defined as "a systematic set of procedures for recording and reporting measurements of the cost of manufacturing goods and performing services in the aggregate and in detail. It includes methods for recognizing, classifying, al ...

and leading cost accountant in Britain early 20th century.Locke, Robert R. "Cost Accounting: An Institutional Yardstick For Measuring British Entrepreneurial Performance Circa 1914," in: ''The Accounting Historians Journal'' (1979): 1-22.
online
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Biography

Fells was a tailor's son, who came into prominence as secretary of Zetetical Society early 1880s, where he crossed paths with Sidney Webb and

Emile Garcke Emile Oscar Garcke (1856 – 14 November 1930) was a naturalised British electrical engineer, industrial, commercial and political entrepreneur managing director of the British Electric Traction Company (BET), and early author on accounting.Micha ...

. He took classes in intermediate arithmetics, mathematics, composition, dictation, and English History at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution in 1872 and 1873. In 1887 Fells had become assistant secretary at the Brush Electrical Light Corporation, which was directed by

in those days. With Garcke he co-authored with the book "Factory Accounts: Their Principles and Practice." In the next decades this books was published in seven editions, and was still in use in Britain as educational text in the early 1930s. Fells joined the SAA accounting association in 1902, and was later elected fellow of the ICWA. He became known as authority in the field of

. Early in the 1900s Fells became chairman of the mining corporation Kent Collieries, by 1911 he was director of three mining corporations with operations in Burma and Australia. and later worked as consultant for the British industry and lectured accountants in India and Japan.J.M. Fells. "Cost Accounting," in: ''Incorporated Accountants' Students' Society of London.'' 1910. p. 160-161 In

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Fells served as Private Secretary to the Surveyor-General of Supply in the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

, and was appointed a CBE, Civilian War Honour, in 1920.

Work

Financial accounting and cost accounting

As authority in the field of

, Fells was engaged in promoting the profession and the legal status of the profession. In those days there was a big difference between

financial accounting Financial accounting is the field of accounting concerned with the summary, analysis and reporting of financial transactions related to a business. This involves the preparation of financial statements available for public use. Stockholders, ...

and

. Locke (1979) recalled:

inancial accounting wasa liberal profession made up of independent wealthy businessmen who did not work directly for industry but acted as consultants, working out of their own offices, much as lawyers do. The chartered or incorporated accountants, moreover, were not even exposed to cost accounting during their training, for as young “articled” clerks they were apprenticed to accounting offices instead of formally educated in colleges or universities. They could only learn what happened in the offices and, since the accountants seldom dealt with costing matters neither did the apprentices. The clerks who kept cost records in British industry were not chartered or incorporated accountants. They were poor, badly educated men who received what training they got on the job in a factory bookkeeping office. They hardly ever came into professional contact with public accountants who, in any case, despised them because of their lower class origins.

In 1910 J.M. Fells remarked that public accountants still "did not consider these industrial cost accountants to be engaged in accounting."

Selected publications

* J. M. Fells, G.B. Shaw, Sidney Webb et al. ''The Zetetical Society: Programme for the Session 1881-82.'' Zetetical Society, London. *

and J. M. Fells.
Factory accounts, their principles; a handbook for accountants and manufacturers with appendices on the nomenclature of machine details; the income tax acts; the rating of factories; fire and boiler insurance; the factory and workshop acts, etc.; including also a glossary of terms and a large number of specimen rulings
'' 1887; 2nd ed. 1889; 4th ed., rev. and enl, 1893. * J.M. Fells (1909). ''The Budget and the Taxation of Land.'' * John Manger Fells. ''Accountancy in Relation to Cost and Market Prices, Etc.'' London, 1923. Articles, a selection: * J.M. Fells. "Cost Accounting," in: ''Incorporated Accountants' Students' Society of London.'' 1910. p. 160-161 * Fells, J. M. "The Accountancy of Tomorrow," ''The Incorporated Accountants’ Journal,'' 22 (July, 1912), pp. 69–74. * Fells, John M. "Some principles governing the ascertainment of cost." ''Incorporated Accountants’ Journal'' (1919): 31-34. * Fells, J. M. "Industrial Economics'." ''The Incorporated Accountants' Journal,'' (1922): 123-6.

References

External links

Cost Accounting: An Institutional Yardstick For Measuring British Entrepreneurial Performance Circa 1914
by Robert R. Locke. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fells, John Manger 1858 births 1925 deaths British accountants British writers