This is a study of estate management on three estates in north-east England at the outset of the Industrial Revolution. The estates were those of George Bowes, Richard Ridley, and William Cotesworth, and the book is concerned particularly with the relationship of landlord and tenant on properties that were at the forefront of coal mining in this period and at how management and accountancy practices were integrated across dispersed activities. Oldroyd also examines the technical characteristics of the estate accounts and the accounting knowledge that they demonstrate. Chapter 1 introduces the estates and estate accounting in the period of study and chapter 2 the organization of the three estates. Chapter 3 concentrates on contractual obligations and on the management systems for tracking rights and obligations to safeguard the interests of the proprietor, including the contractual arrangements between the landowner and lessees, subcontractors, partners, tenants, and suppliers, and the role of accounting in upholding the proprietor’s rights. It assesses the ability of the accounting to respond to the different forms of organizational control that were employed from time to time over the various activities. Oldroyd concludes that accounting was an indispensable aid to management in that without it the various estate and business operations could not have functioned, given their size and diversity; indeed, the systematic way in which the accounts were deployed to regulate the participants suggests a high degree of efficiency.

Chapter 4 looks at the return on the investment and considers the extent to which the landowners and their stewards focused on the profitability of their industrial activities in the accounting data. Oldroyd probes what they understood as the meaning of “profit” through the manner in which it was calculated. The chapter examines the investing activity of the three families and examines their attitude to risk. It assesses the importance of maximizing the relative return on investment and gauges the extent to which it is reasonable to dub them “capitalists.”

In chapter 5, Oldroyd turns to the labor process and labor control, and looks in particular at the contractual relationship between the estate and wage laborers in the coal mines. Through the accounting records he explores the system of labor control and investigates the method for fixing rates and their responsiveness to market conditions. He examines the mode of production and the degree of specialization within the mines, assesses the productivity of colliers and the mobility of the workforce, and discusses accounting as a disciplinary technology. Chapter 6 assesses the ways in which the behavior and expectations of stewards were influenced by the accounting practices. It considers the attitude of stewards in the context of agency theory, which would predict an expectation of reward linked to the quality of the accounts they produced, and investigates the level of reliance placed on accounting numbers and their use in resolving trade disputes as well as in gaining an upper hand in bargaining situations. Finally, chapter 7 draws all of this together to discuss points of similarity and contrast between the three families. In particular, Oldroyd finds that accounting did play a vital role in the business concerns of his three landowners and that they undoubtedly understood the concept of profit as an increment of capital. If, as many historians accept, the British Industrial Revolution was driven by cheap coal, the colliery owners of north-east England knew how to ensure that they made a profit at the same time.