British Shareholder Meetings in the Long Nineteenth Century

This collection of reported British shareholder meetings originally published between 1800 and 1920 provides scholars and students new insight into the development of big businesses in the world today. Although such meetings comprised only one of many facets of companies' intersections with their publics during the nineteenth century, they regularly provide a rich insight into each industry. This collection offers a breadth of examples, including utilities, land companies, and theatres as well as mining, insurance, banking, and transport, to allow readers to gain a sense of the protean nature of incorporation during the long nineteenth century. Following a general introduction, the book is divided into four sections: Doing the Business (on day-to-day financial operations), Politics (on corporate activities than intersected with British political and imperial concerns), Failure (on the communication and reception of financial ruin), and Mergers and Acquisitions (on shareholders' responses to proposed mergers). Short introductions to each document provides the necessary information about each company and its constituents. This title will be of great interest to students of History, Business, and Finance.

Timothy Alborn is Professor of History at Lehman College and the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Acknowledgements General Introduction Part 1. Doing Business 1. Drury Lane Theatre (1811) Morning Post, 31 October 1811 2. Norwich Union Fire and Annuity Office (1818) London Times, 24 July 1818; Morning Post, 29 July 1818 3. Welsh Iron and Coal Company (1826) London Times, 28 August 1826 4. National Provincial Bank (1834) Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1834 5. Eastern Counties Railway (1849) London Standard, 1 March 1849; Essex Standard, 11 May 1849 6. Guinness and Company, Ltd. (1887) Freeman's Journal, 16 August 1887 7. Great Western Railway (1891) Supplement to the Railway Times, 14 February 1891 8. Liverpool Union Bank (1891) Bankers' Magazine, March 1891. 9. Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company (1896) London Standard, 29 August 1896 10. Casualty Insurance Company (1906) Post Magazine and Insurance Monitor, 24 March 1906 Part 2. Political Companies 11. Bank of England (1797-98) London Times, 3, 24 and 31 March, 23 June, and 18 November 1797; and 7 February 1798; also London Chronicle, 26 March 1797; and Star and Evening Advertiser, 16 December 1797 12. Imperial Brazilian Mining Company (1841) Anti-Slavery Reporter, 2 June 1841 13. New Zealand Company (1846) London Times, 30 May 1846 14. East India Company (1857) "East-India House," Allen's Indian Mail, 27 December 1857 15. British South Africa Company (1898) Morning Post, 22 April 1898 Part 3. Mergers and Acquisitions 16. London and North Western Railway (1846) Herapath's Journal and Railway Magazine, 8 August 1846 17. Albert Life Assurance Company and Medical Invalid Life Assurance Society (1860) London Daily News, 2 October 1860 18. Alliance and Dublin Consumers' Gas Company (1866) Freeman's Journal, 2 October 1866 19. London & County Bank and London & Westminster Bank (1909) Bankers', Insurance Managers', and Agents' Magazine, September 1909 Part 4. Bubbles and Failures 20. United Chilian Company; Chilian Mining Company (1826) London Times, 18 April and 7 November 1826 21. London, Chatham and Dover Railway (1866) London Times, 14 August 1866, 1 September and 29 September, 1866 22. City of Glasgow Bank (1875) Aberdeen Journal, 23 October 1878 23. Great Britain Mutual Life Assurance Society (1881) Post Magazine and Insurance Monitor, 8 and 15 January 1881; 7 October 1882 Bibliography