Catalogue description Board of Trade and successors: Companies Department: Correspondence and Papers

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Details of BT 58
Reference: BT 58
Title: Board of Trade and successors: Companies Department: Correspondence and Papers
Description:

Correspondence and papers of the Board of Trade's Companies Department.

The records include files and unregistered papers concerning assurance companies, registration of business names and of companies, investigations into liquidation of companies and the enforcement of the various Companies Acts. There are also records relating to money lending, share transactions and take over bids, insurance and the Stock Exchange, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Company Law (Jenkins) Committee, and two precedent books relating to special and departmental cases.

The series includes a few papers earlier than 1904 taken over from the Commercial and Railway Departments, together with re-registered files which would otherwise be found amongst the records of the Department of Trade and Industry (FV) division: Records of the Industrial and the Industrial and Commercial Policy Divisions and Groups.

The series also includes files re-registered from the COS series (BT 298) but other prefixes are represented.
Date: 1850-1986
Arrangement:

BT 58/1-13: arranged in file number order covering dates 1871-1921.

BT 14-130: files registered from 1905-1930, arranged in file number order within the year of registration. Further files from this period can be found in BT 58/131-492 and BT 58/496 onwards.

BT 58/131-492: files registered 1931-1950, originally arranged and described under 23 subject codes. List of subject codes below.

BT 58/493-495: unregistered papers relating to precedents (1858-1929) and licenses from the Board of Trade (1850-1852).

BT 58/496-1076 and BT 58/1236-1714: files registered from 1909 onwards, arranged in roughly file number order within each year of registration. In using its files, the Department frequently annexed older (and sometimes later) files to those currently in use. The annexed files will sometimes be found out of sequence. Occasionally these appear in the catalogue as attachments to the main file, sometimes they are listed separately but adjacent to the main file and sometimes they will appear within the proper file number sequence, cross referenced to the file they were originally attached to.

BT 58/1077-1235: these pieces are listed in strict former reference order.

Key to subject codes for pieces BT 58/131-492:

1. Annual Returns (Code No.1), 2. Arts Union (Code No.2), 3. Assurance Companies Acts (Code No.3), 4. Auditors and Accountants (Code No.4), 5. Board of Trade's Sanction or Options Sought (Code No.5), 6. Companies Winding-Up: Liquidation and Liquidators (Code No.6), 7. Company Files Questions (Code No.7), 8. Company Title Applications (Code No.8), 9. Fixed Trusts and Trusteeship (Code No.9), 10. Insurance and Pension Matters (Code No.10), 11. Insurance Undertaking Bill (Code No.11), 12. International Negotiations (Code No.12), 13. Investigations into Firm's Affairs (Code No.13), 14. Liability to Show Directors Names (Code No.14), 15. Moneylenders Acts (Code No.15), 16. Official Receivers Procedure (Code No.16), 17. Omitting the Word Limited from Title (Code No.17), 18. Prevention of Fraud (Investment) Act 1939: Share Pushing (Code No.18), 19. Proposed Amendments to Company Law (Code No.19), 20. Royal Charters (Code No.20), 21. Share Registration and Shareholders Interests (Code No.21), 22. War Risks Insurance (Code No.22), 23. Companies Registration Office (Code No.23).

BT 58/1/-130 item reference numbers derive from the original reference assigned by the creating department (COS series).

All documents have the original reference located in the Former Department Reference field.

Related material:

For other papers of the Company Law (Jenkins) Committee see BT 147

Committee on Shares of No Par Value records are in BT 287

Licensed Dealers Tribunal records are in BT 300
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Board of Trade, Commercial Department, 1825-1872

Board of Trade, Companies Department, 1904-1941

Board of Trade, Finance Department, 1867-1945

Board of Trade, Insurance and Companies Department, 1941-1970

Board of Trade, Railway Department, 1851-1919
Physical description: 1714 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
Unpublished finding aids:

Paper list containing packing list detailing COS files raised before I964 that can be found in BT 299 and subject index ordered by company name.

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