Ivy Thomas
The First Female Certified General Accountant

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Ivy Thomas and Toronto Branch

“Did I tell you that I was nominated as a Director of the Toronto Branch of the Association?”

To consider from afar the life of Ivy Thomas is to see a superficial portrait of a successful pioneer. But to know her thoughts, obstacles and even misfortunes is to understand how complex was her world. By virtue of her working relationship with T.H. Frankling, secretary-treasurer of Toronto Branch, she was intimately familiar with the running of Toronto Branch, and was clearly considered by the board as capable of meaningful contribution. Yet, given the times, it is understandable that this 24-year-old young woman backed away from responsibilities other than assisting with the student group.

I appreciated the honour, however…the Directorate is composed of men with probably twenty or thirty years’ experience in the accounting profession. All the directors are very kind to me but I feel that their attitude would have changed had I been elected and then they had to meet me as their equal. At present they are more less [sic] amused with the “child-wonder” as someone jokingly called me, but once a woman accepted a place on the Board they would no longer think of me as a “child-wonder” but as a darn nuisance. As long as I can make myself useful they won’t mind me being a member, but men have always resented women taking their places in the business world and I don’t want any member to feel that if it weren’t for me he might have been on the Board.

It was not until 1943—eight years later—that Ivy accepted a directorship, and so significant was its announcement that the Globe and Mail reported the story. In those eight years she had been an active member of several branch committees as well as the ongoing secretary treasurer of the Branch since 1931, the year she received her designation. For these contributions was awarded Life Membership in 1938, five years prior to her election to the board.

In 1947, Ivy Thomas was elected the first female chair of Toronto Branch, an announcement this time reported by the Toronto Daily Star. Her achievement seems all the more remarkable given her reaction in 1935 to a request from the board to give a lecture on public accounting—T.H. Frankling held a public accounting licence by means of his certified public accountant designation from the Province of Quebec in 1926; Ivy would have been familiar with public accounting given that she worked for T.H. Frankling & Company—to students in the CGA program:

At first I thought they were joking, for I could no more lecture than I could swim, but apparently [the board] was in earnest. You see, I have one advantage which the other members haven’t—practical experience in Public Accounting and Auditing. However, I told them that it was out of the question, and that I would be willing to collaborate with another member who wished to deliver the lecture, but that I couldn’t do so.

Again, she was acutely aware of her position:

Just the thought of standing in front of a group of 40 or 50 men who are studying for their degree, or who have obtained it, and trying to foist upon them my few crumbs of knowledge makes me weak at the knees. It will be a long, long time before I will accept any assignment like that, for I am sure that I would be tongue-tied from stage-fright.

And again, the reasons behind her ambition:

All these proferred honours make me feel that my years of study and work have not been entirely wasted, and that perhaps yet I may be able to to be of use to the world and earn a handsome salary so that I may help Mom and Dad more than I can now.

William Henry Thomas was born in 1925. Like Ivy, he was born in Toronto but his family traced their roots back to England. He had been pursuing a career as a brass moulder when World War II was declared, whereupon he applied for naval service. Demobilized in the mid-Forties, Bill Thomas began courses in business administration run through an agency of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Hamilton, Ontario. After successfully completing the courses, he began taking correspondence courses through the University in Chicago in accounting. In 1948 he wrote to T.H. Frankling, asking for a position that would give him the knowledge he needed to pass the examination and achieve the status of a certified general accountant.

According to Harold Garland, FCGA and a former president of CGA Ontario, Bill Thomas was not only hired by T.H. Frankling, but tutored by both Frankling and Ivy after hours in the offices of T.H. Frankling & Company. A romance blossomed between Ivy and Bill: on September 29, 1950, at the Church of St. Aidan in Toronto, Ivy Alberta Cox married William Henry Thomas and became the Ivy Thomas we know today.

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