T.H. Frankling
The Mysterious Fountainhead of CGA Ontario
Page 3
By the mid-1920s, however, Frankling was living at 752 Dovercourt Road in Toronto. His practice, T.H. Frankling & Company, Public Accountants, was run out of the nearby Bank of Hamilton branch at the corner of College and Ossington Streets in Toronto. The bank branch was reasonably prestigious due to its association to an international event: on November 11, 1918, Harry H. Gardiner—better known as “The Human Fly”—climbed the Bank of Hamilton headquarters in Hamilton, Ontario to celebrate the end of World War I. The Hamilton headquarters was one of Canada’s first skyscrapers, and while climbing the side of the building, Gardiner stuck his head into one of the open windows and signed some insurance papers. He also purchased a $1,000 bond. The exposure raised the profile of the Bank of Hamilton and its branches across Canada.
Frankling makes his first appearance in a Toronto newspaper on Wednesday, February 18, 1925. The Globe (today the Globe and Mail), in an item titled “Monthly Dinner is Held by Accountants’ Association,” reported: “The Toronto branch of the General Accountants’ Association held its monthly dinner and meeting last night at the Peacock Inn. The members received a report from the delegation to the annual meeting of the association, held in Montreal on the 9th instant [meaning the present or current month], read by T.H. Frankling, President of the Toronto branch.”
Six years later, in 1931, the Globe also printed the first known mistake regarding Frankling’s name. In an announcement of the dates for the GAA’s intermediate and final examinations, Frankling is identified as Franklin. Though the mistake was subsequently corrected in later newspaper announcements and items [more than 15 of which identify him as “T.H. Frankling”], it was an indication of a confusion that would continue throughout Frankling’s life. In a 2007 interview, Harold Garland asserted that, “There was no “g” as far as I was concerned. All I knew was no “g,” but I’m no authority on that.”
Confusing the picture still further was the spelling of “Frankling” as “Franklin” on two occasions in Professor Stuart’s The First Seventy-Five Years: chapter three and the book’s appendix. In a 2007 interview, Professor Stuart recalled that he was given a large package of archival material from CGA Canada on which to base his commemorative publication. Frankling’s name may have been misspelled in at least one document from the national organization. Though most CGAs knew him by his proper name, the confusion over Frankling’s name only added to the mystery of the man.
After serving as president of Toronto Branch in 1925, Frankling would assume the role of secretary-treasurer and run the daily business of the Branch from his company’s office. It was a practice that would continue for the next 30 years. In the 1920s and ’30s the letterhead of the Branch was printed with the address of Frankling’s company: 921 Bank of Hamilton, Toronto 2.
In 1924, the Bank of Hamilton and all its branches were acquired by the CIBC, and the building was eventually demolished. Nevertheless, it was at this location that his legend grew, when Thomas Hudson Frankling struck a blow for the equal rights of women, and changed the public face of accounting in Canada forever.
 T.H. Frankling and Ivy Thomas
In 1927, a young woman by the name of Ivy Cox joined T.H. Frankling & Company, following prior success working in the business office of the University of Toronto. According to CGAs like Roger Caloz, the auditor of Toronto Branch for many years, Ivy performed clerical and secretarial duties for Frankling, but must have shown sufficient promise that Frankling encouraged her to enrol in the CGA program of professional studies.
In 1921, the national Association had decided by a vote of 44 to three that “it was not in the interest of the Association to admit women.” This professional discrimination was not unusual at the time. During World War I, women had won a place for themselves in non-traditional roles, as men were drawn out of the labour force and into the war effort; once the war was over, men expected to return to their former positions, which roiled social tensions and spurred the women’s movement. In a pattern that was repeated internationally, the demands of suffragettes led to the establishment of voting rights for women (in 1918, Canada passed the Women’s Franchise Act, permitting all female citizens to vote in federal elections) and reactionary discrimination against women by professional associations (in 1921, the GAA voted to oppose the admission of female members.)
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