Collection Summary
Information for Researchers
Agency History
Scope and Content of Collection
Collection Summary
Collection Title: Archive of the Companies Registration Office
Date (inclusive): 1844-1951
Collection Number: BANC MSS Z-G 1
FILM
Creators :
Great Britain. Board of Trade.
Extent:
Number of containers: 542 microfilm reels : negative (Index: Rich. 818:3; key: Rich.
636:12; collection: Rich. 121:1-184:3) and positive.
Repository: The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Selected documents concerning the organization and activities of
limited companies interested in the North American West.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite
and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
FOR REFERENCE USE ONLY. Reproduction prohibited. Requests for copies or permission to
publish should be directed to the owners of the originals.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Archive of the Companies Registration Office (Great Britain
Board of Trade), BANC MSS Z-G 1 FILM, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
Alternate Forms Available
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
Additional Notes on Collection:
Photographed at the Companies Registration Office, Bush House, London, from originals in
various English repositories. Both positive and negative film is included.
Related Collections
Archive of the Companies Registration Office, 1856-1951 (Scotland) (BANC MSS Z-G 2 FILM)
Dissolved companies files (BANC MSS Z-G 3 FILM)
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Finance--Great Britain
Agency History
The Companies Registration Office, England, had its origin in 1856 with the passage of one
of the first of the Companies Acts. It contains the richest single collection of American
economic history materials in Great Britain. The Bancroft Library has filmed the papers of
those organizations operating in Western and Central America and Mexico during the latter
half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The records filmed are
miscellaneous and among other issues they include colonization, railroads, and land
speculation.
Contained in this office are the official corporate records of each joint stock (public or
private) company founded in England and Wales (as well as an index for those in Ireland and
Scotland) since 1856, together with those of companies in existence in 1856 and which
continued to operate thereafter. Included are all companies regardless of their location of
business— whether in North or South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, or the various
maritime areas. The law required (with but few vital alterations except for additional
information required) the filing of:
- Memorandum of Association (names of founders, purposes and reasons for association).
- Articles of Incorporation (similar to those in the United States but in much greater
detail and giving much information as to operational procedure to be followed).
- By-laws.
- Annual financial statement and complete annual list of stockholders (of each and every
type of security issued) showing name of such stockholder, residence address, profession,
craft, trade, or specific employment, stock held, amount paid, annual charges.
- All charges in corporate structure, officers, addresses, by-laws, reduction or
increases in capital, new security issues, balance sheets after 1909, copies of official
meeting calls, and court orders.
- Voluntary windup notices, appointments and reports of closing officials or receivers,
and final reports.
All papers of the some 360,000 companies recorded since the founding of the office are
intact and filed in numerical sequence. Each company file is contained in one ore more
string binders with each document therein containing in addition to the company number, the
sequence number of the document in the particular file. On the inside cover of each binder
is a summary sheet listing by title the documents contained therein.
Records of chartered companies previous to 1856 are kept by the special office at Hayes,
Middlesex, and few records of such companies are found in the Companies Registration Office
unless the company continued to do business after 1856. The Bancroft Library has filmed a
few of the papers from Hayes. Chartered companies were not required to submit reports or
statements. There is an index of these on reel 40.
It is possible to trace from the records in this office a large part (and probably the most
significant portion) of English economic penetration in every part of the world. Since all
English companies, regardless of their position on the Stock Exchange, while of vital
importance—and sometimes of greater importance for those companies whose
securities were on the exchange—are secondary to those at Bush House. The
researcher can investigate English corporations in any country, region, or continent, or any
type of business, and by correlation of the Bush House records with those found in the
archives of the Stock Exchange can frequently assemble an excellent picture of corporate
operations.
The records in this office are only for companies organized in England and Wales. Those for
companies founded in Scotland and Ireland are located in separate companies registration
offices in Edinburgh and Dublin.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains selected documents concerning the organization and activities of
limited companies interested in Western and Central America and Mexico during the latter
half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The records filmed are
miscellaneous and among other issues they include colonization, railroads, and land
speculation.
The microfilm includes an alphabetical index of the companies, a key to reels 1-411 and 1/F-83/F,
and an index pamphlet printed by the Companies Registration Office, which is available on
reel 59.