Chambers, Raymond John (RJ)

Raymond John Chambers was born in 1917 and educated in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, before being awarded a scholarship to study economics at the University of Sydney, where he graduated in 1939. The first full-time lecturer in accounting at the University of Sydney, he was appointed to the University's foundation Chair of Accounting in 1960, a position he held till his retirement in 1983.

Chambers has been described by his 20th century peers as an "accounting pioneer" (Moonitz, Abacus 1982) and "intellectual giant" of the 20th century (George Staubus, Accounting Horizons, 2003) - truly a "Renaissance man" (Giuseppe Galassi, private correspondence with Graeme Dean, 2000). He was selected by Dick Edwards (1994) as one of his Twentieth Century Accounting Thinkers. What is not so well known, especially by younger accounting academics, is the role he played in lifting the status of accounting to that of an equal in the the University. He fought for this for half a century.

Internationally recognised as an eminent scholar in his lifetime, the intellectual contributions of Chambers include a dozen books and more than 200 articles. In 1965 he became the founding editor of Abacus, Australia's leading international academic journal of accounting. Chambers is especially known for his proposed new system of accounting, Continuously Contemporary Accounting (CoCoA), which earned him the Degree of Doctor of Science in Economics in 1973 from the University of Sydney, and election as fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. In recognition of his services to commerce and education he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1978.

Chambers became the first person outside North America to be appointed as the Distinguished International Lecturer by the American Accounting Association. In 1991 he was awarded the Association's prestigious Outstanding Educator's Award and was, at the time the first non-US resident to be inducted into the Ohio Accounting Hall of Fame.

Clarke, F.L., Dean, G.W. and P.W. Wolnizer, 'Rejoinder to Forum on Chambers' "The Poverty of Accounting Discourse" - More questions than answers?', Accounting Education, Vol.14, No.1 March, 2005, pp. 39-51. Program for the RJ Chambers memorial Lecture (2004).