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Board of Trade: Companies Registration Office: Files of Dissolved Companies
Description and record details
| Reference | BT 31 |
|---|---|
| Title | Board of Trade: Companies Registration Office: Files of Dissolved Companies |
| Date | 1855-2000 |
| Description | Files of dissolved companies registered with the Board of Trade from 1856 onwards. These files do not contain the internal day-to-day business records. Many of the documents are of a legal and procedural nature and are primarily concerned with the winding-up arrangements prior to the dissolution of a company, and the company's compliance with the Companies Acts. They often include: memorandum and articles of association containing particulars of the company's constitution; lists and stakes of shareholders; location of registered office; register of directors;annual returns. Composition of series: The files cover those dissolved companies of all kinds incorporated between 1856 and 1931 and dissolved before 1932; some files of companies incorporated between 1856 and 1900 and dissolved between 1933 and 1948; files of public and private non-exempt companies incorporated up to 1970 and dissolved between 1948 and 1971 with a one per cent sample of files of exempt private companies. The files for public companies dissolved since 2 July 1960 have all been preserved. The files of all public companies incorporated before 1975 and dissolved before 1980, with the stripping of share allotments and all annual returns except for the first and full last annual return and intermediate full annual returns for every tenth year, have been preserved. The files of all private companies above an agreed capital threshold and a 1% sample or 250 files (whichever is greater) below the nominal capital figure is selected. The files of all public companies incorporated before 1975 and dissolved after 1980 are to be preserved, as will files of all dissolved companies above an agreed capital threshold and a 1% random sample of files below the agreed capital threshold, and the files will no longer be weeded except for share allotments. This series is a hybrid series that contains paper, microform and digital files (1273 digital files; the remainder being boxes, files, volumes and microform). |
| Arrangement | Paper Records: To order up a company file between BT 31/1-43681 both the box number and the company number are required e.g. the reference for the Leyland and Public Hall Company Ltd would be BT 31/16049/58735. If the company number is not known use a * after the reference, e.g. BT 31/16049/*. The date provided in the series list is an inferred range based on a combination of the actual date of incorporation and the last date of a block of records as they were transferred in tranches from the Companies Registration Office. These dates are therefore accurate for the incorporation of a company, and a guide only for the date of its dissolution. Company names in the series list are preceded by company numbers. Digital Records: The digital records are organised by company number. The description also includes company name and year of corporation. References for born digital records are automatically generated and display a 'Z' after a forward slash, which distinguish them from traditional references allocated to paper and digitised records. |
| Related material |
Companies Registration Office: Classified Index ('Classi Sheets') to Files of Dissolved Exempt Private Companies: BT 95 |
| Separated material |
Most business records are kept in local archives, if they survive. |
| Held by | The National Archives, Kew |
| Legal status | Public Record(s) |
| Language |
English |
| Creator |
Board of Trade, Companies Registration Office, 1844-1970 Companies House, 1988 Companies Registration Office, 1970-1988 |
| Physical description | 102288 paper files, microform and digital records |
| Access conditions | Open unless otherwise stated |
| Immediate source of acquisition |
Companies House |
| Accruals | Series is accruing |
| Selection and destruction information | Under the terms of the Companies Act, 1948 and the Public Records Acts, a schedule of destruction dated July 1950 was prepared in order to reduce the great bulk of the dissolved companies' files. The annual returns in these files were destroyed except the first, last, and every intermediate fifth; also a one per cent sample was preserved of entire files of dissolved companies registered from 1856 onwards ('P' or 'X' appears against the entries for such files in the catalogue). In 1959 and 1960 for the reason noted above the Particular Instance Paper Committee decided that (a) all documents of dissolved public and non-exempt private companies, except certain of the annual returns, should be preserved; of the returns, the first, last, and every intermediate tenth should be preserved and the rest destroyed (b) files of dissolved exempt private companies with the exception of one file in every hundred ('X' in the catalogue) should be destroyed. See also OSP 25: The Regulation of Companies. |
| Administrative/ biographical background | Files of dissolved companies registered with the Board of Trade from 1856 onwards. |
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