Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149911 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 2017-01
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
This article outlines the development of English company law in the four centuries before 1900. The main focus is on the evolution of the corporate form and the five key legal characteristics of the corporation - separate legal personality, limited liability, transferable joint stock, delegated management, and investor ownership. The article outlines how these features developed in guilds, regulated companies, and the great mercantilist and moneyed companies. I then move on to examine the State's control of incorporation and the attempts by the founders and lawyers of unincorporated business enterprises to craft the legal characteristics of the corporation. Finally, the article analyses the forces behind the liberalisation of incorporation law in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Subjects: 
Bubble Act
Company
Corporate Law
Legal Personality
Limited Liability
Transferable Shares
Unincorporated Company
JEL: 
G10
G18
G30
K10
K20
N23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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