T.H. Frankling
The Mysterious Fountainhead of CGA Ontario
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In the early days of the GAA, it was possible to be admitted as a member by passing the intermediate examination, pending success in the final examination. C.A. Mills, like Frankling, was an “uncertificated” member at the time of his election. Though Frankling was elected a director of Toronto Branch in January of 1922, records show that he achieved his CGA designation on July 7, 1922.
Did the Dominion Board send Frankling from Montreal to Toronto to assist in the formation of Toronto Branch? Was he living in Montreal, but saw an opportunity to advance his career through the creation of an Ontario branch? Or had Frankling already settled in Toronto by 1922? If so, he was almost certainly one of the small number of Ontario members of the GAA who had lobbied for the creation of an Ontario branch.
In 1925, Frankling became the fourth president in the history of the Toronto Branch. He had been elected to the first board of the Toronto branch in 1922, and by 1925 had served on no fewer than two committees (library, lecture) at a time when the branch had just five committees in total (entertainment, publicity and employment were the others).
In the same year, he further distinguished himself by offering a prize to the CGA candidate who scored the most points on the final examination. At the same time, L.P. Lortie, the president of the Dominion Board in Montreal, matched Frankling’s prize with a similar prize presented to the student with the highest score in the intermediate examination. Thus the heads of the Montreal and Toronto organizations had the joint honour of awarding student excellence in the same year.
Frankling’s prize in 1925 was an early indication of the colourful tales told by FCGAs like Art Bond, Harold Garland and Herb Perry of Frankling’s passion for student excellence. By the 1950s, that passion—some would say obsession—had attained mythic proportions. Yet the early award also contributed to the mystery of the man, for the prize confused the details of the creation of the T.H. Frankling medal in the 1950s. It was too easy to confuse the two awards and assume that the Frankling medal was created in 1925. Certainly, the creation of the Frankling medal may have acknowledged the earlier prize, but the medal was in fact created in 1955.
In 1926, Thomas Hudson Frankling reached the pinnacle of the Association: he became the 14th president in the history of the GAA, and just its second from Ontario. In only 14 years, Frankling had risen from immigrant to the president of a national association of financial professionals. He had been instrumental in the founding of the precursor to CGA Ontario, and would be indispensable in providing stability to the Branch prior to its incorporation.
Still, all this was not enough for him. In 1926—the same year Frankling became president of the Association that granted the CGA designation—he became a member of the Corporation of Public Accountants of the Province of Quebec.
According to The First Seventy-Five Years, and General Accountants Association,
a book published in 1938 by GAA president William Bentley on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Association, the 1920s were a time when many accountant associations in Canada formed and disbanded. Just seven years earlier, in 1919, the Independent Accountants of Montreal merged with the GAA. In the year 1920, a new organization called the Accountants Association was formed as the direct result of an application to obtain provincial incorporation for the benefit of the certificated members of the GAA who were in public practice at the time. The members adopted the designation of Licentiate in Accounting (LA), but by 1926 had become the Corporation of Public Accountants of the Province of Quebec. Frankling was just its 66th member. His CPA designation was recorded by that association on November 15, 1926, and his certificate signed by A.J.M. Petrie, CPA secretary, who had preceded Frankling as president of the GAA in 1922. In 1946, the CPAs of Quebec and the chartered accountants of Quebec merged. While no confirmation exists, Frankling may have become a de facto chartered accountant by the 1940s through the merger of the two organizations. Furthermore, his involvement with the CPAs of Quebec suggests that he may indeed have had roots in Montreal, beginning with his arrival in Canada in 1912.
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