Introduction: This paper looks at the evolutive course of the firm Benjamin Ingham & Co of Palermo, later known as Ingham & Whitaker, by using archival material from the Ingham-Whitaker Archives of Marsala. In the nineteenth century, Sicily witnessed a significant productive, mercantile and financial development, occupying a position of importance in Europe. Palermo was home to a powerful and industrious British merchant community. Among the members of this community, Benjamin Ingham and Joseph Whitaker were two of the most noteworthy British merchants in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Aims of the work: This work follows the evolution of the accounting systems of Benjamin Ingham & Co and examines the existence of strong ties between Ingham’s firm with the territory and with the international context. Proceeding, therefore, in this direction two research questions are posed: firstly, did the informative value of the accounting remain unchanged in the evolutive process of Benjamin Ingham & Co, and secondly, did the evolutive course of the business Benjamin Ingham & Co generate changes in the administration of the firm’s accounts.
Methodological approach: This study is based on the analysis of documentation from the Ingham-Whitaker Archive in Marsala. It concerns a selection of records which cover a period of over fifty years: 1814-1869. These records were analysed to ascertain the bookkeeping methods used, as well as the purpose and content of the information they contain. By examining these records within the given timeframe, a comparison of the selected sources was made.
The theoretical framework of this paper reflects the idea that accounting is a social tool, a social institutional practice, embedded in the social fabric and environment where it is practised. Bookkeeping has an ethnographical importance and, in the case studied here, the changes in bookkeeping techniques also occur in response to a changing environment.
Main findings: From an analysis of the archival material over the period concerned, we have found the relevance of information systems in managing complex, even global business development. The main findings show that the firm used double-entry bookkeeping. In the early daybooks taken from 1814 and 1819, there was a dense concentration of information in the records, which in response to the research questions, demonstrates a deep, but compressed amount of information. In contrast, later records selected from 1866-1869, illustrate a change in the firm’s bookkeeping. This marks a change in the firm’s business in general, reflected by an evolutive development of the firm’s accounting methods.
Contribution to the literature: This paper, from the records examined, demonstrates the existence of a deeply integrated British business community which had a common code in its accounting and administrative practices for managing its internal relations. Although there is a gap in the archival material from 1819 until 1866 in the daybooks, this void highlights the transition the firm Benjamin Ingham & Co made from a prevalently mercantile concern, to a more financial one which invested its patrimony globally, despite being based in Palermo. From the registers chosen a network of individuals can be traced which demonstrate a web of social and economic contacts within the business community of Sicily. These businessmen interacted with Ingham’s firm conducting significant business both on a commercial as well as a financial level. This paper fills a gap in the previous literature, to show how the firm’s bookkeeping and administrative methods were increasingly tied to the management of the firm’s growing patrimony on an international level.