Robert Hiester Montgomery

Robert Hiester Montgomery (September 21, 1872 – May 2, 1953) was an American accountant, educator, and author. He co-founded Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery, a predecessor of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Montgomery was twice president of the American Institute of Accountants (AICPA), contributed to the founding of the Journal of Accountancy, and authored Auditing Theory and Practice (1912), the first major American auditing textbook. In 1950, he was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame. Montgomery quit school at 14 and went to work to help his family.

Two years later, in 1898, Montgomery and three of his colleagues, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr., and his brother T. Edward Ross, formed Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery. Two years later, the firm opened an office in New York City under Montgomery's management. In his spare time, Montgomery learned law. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1904. Montgomery established his law firm, Robert H. Montgomery, Attorney at Law, and worked on many difficult tax cases for clients. In 1905, Montgomery led a reorganization of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). He created the Journal of Accountancy (then called the American Journal of Accounting). The first issue contained his Professional Standards. He was president of the AICPA for two terms, first in 1912 and again in 1935. In 1941, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Commissioned as a lieutenant colonel (1918) during World War I, he was generally referred to thereafter as Colonel Montgomery. His critical wartime role was in the civilian-military apparatus, where he served as the chief of the Price Fixing Section within the Purchase, Storage and Traffic Division of the General Staff. This position utilized his financial and accounting expertise to manage and regulate prices for the war effort.

Legacy In 1957, Cooper Brothers & Co (UK), McDonald, Currie and Co (Canada), and Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery (US) merged to form Coopers & Lybrand. For the rest of the century, Coopers & Lybrand was known as one of the "Big Eight". On 1 July 1998, the worldwide merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand created the current PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Montgomery established a collection of pine trees at his home in Greenwich. In 1953, he donated his estate to the town, which is now a 102-acre park in the center of Greenwich. In commemoration of his donation, a cultivar of the Colorado spruce was named Picea pungens 'Montgomery in his honor.

Montgomery collected manuscript account books and documents illustrating and documenting the history of accounting and business procedures from the 14th to the 20th century. He donated his collection to Columbia University in 1926. These books constitute the Montgomery Collection at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in the Butler Library at Columbia University. The materials from his collection were featured in a 1987 Rare Book and Manuscript exhibit at Columbia entitled "The Origins of a Great Profession."

Selected publications Montgomery, Robert Hiester. Auditing theory and practice. The Ronald Press Company, 1912. Montgomery, Robert Hiester. Income Tax Procedure. Ronald Press Company, 1921. Montgomery, R.H. Fifty Years of Accountancy. New York: Ronald Press, 1939. Bogen, Jules Irwin, and Robert Hiester Montgomery. Financial handbook. (1956). Defliese, P. L., Johnson, K. P., Montgomery, R. H., & Macleod, R. K. (1975). Auditing. Wiley.