Constructing the Company: Governance and Procedures in British and Irish Joint Stock Companies, 1720-1844

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The project represents the first comprehensive examination of corporate governance in industrialising Britain. Its working hypothesis is that in enterprises large enough for a space to develop between ownership and management, this space became a political arena in which governing executives confronted their public legislatures, the assemblies of shareholders. The project tests this hypothesis through an analysis of the institutional arrangements for, and the practice of, governance in stock companies in Britain between the Bubble Act of 1720 and the Companies Act of 1844, i.e. during the century or so when the legal status of the stock company in England was most uncertain, and when its status in Scotland was still not entirely resolved. Historians, such as Alborn and Dunlavy, have argued that there was shift from democratic to plutocratic practice in business governance in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century. The project seeks to establish the existence, timing and reasons for this shift.Main Topics:A database of company constitutions was established to analyse the changing governance arrangements in a representative sample of 514 English, Scottish and Irish stock companies founded between 1720 and 1844, grouped into 12 industrial sectors. The object was to cross-tabulate governance provisions by industry, date of foundation, region, legal system (Scotland and Ireland), size and type of company. Variables of interest included capital structure, share denomination; number of shareholders and directors; managerial structure; limited liability clauses; procedure for calls; pre-requisites for share-ownership; scope of executive and proprietorial rights; frequency of shareholders meetings; shareholders franchise; quality of accounting information presented to shareholders. Numerous non-business records were also examined to provide the political, legal and cultural context in which stock companies operated during this period. These sources included diaries, autobiographies, pamphlets, newspaper articles, parliamentary papers, legal treatises, law reports. Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.