SECRETARIAL PRACTICE

CHAPTER 1

COMPANIES IN GENERAL

THe word ‘Company’ throughout this book generally means
a body incorporated under some one or more of the Acts of
Parliament which relate exclusively to companies in general.

This phraseology of daily life happens to accord, with
substantial accuracy, with the definitions in the Companies
Act, 1929. S. 380 of that Act defines a company as a campany
formed and registered under that Act, or an existing company;
whilst an ‘existing company’ means any company formed
and registered under the Joint Stock Companies Acts, the
Companies Act, 1862, or the Companies (Consolidation) Act,
1908, which was not registered under such Acts in Northern
[reland or the Irish Free State. The Joint Stock Companies
Acts are defined to mean the Joint Stock Companies Act, 1856,
and certain other Acts before 1862; but the expression does
not include the Joint Stock Companies Act, 1844, under
which Act companies were first empowered to become incor-
porated, although without limited liability. The right to
register with limited liability was first conferred by an Act of
1855, which was replaced by the codifying Act of 1856,
mentioned above.

It must not be overlooked, however, that there are two
important classes of companies or corporations to which
neither the Joint Stock Companies Acts, nor the Companies
Act, 1929, have any direct relation.

The first of these are associations incorporated by royal
charter, of which the British South Africa Compary and the
Trust and Loan Company of Canada may be taken as examples.

The other class comprises that large body of companies
incorporated under special Acts of Parliament, generally for
the purpose of working some undertaking of a public nature,
e.g. railway companies, gas companies, dock companies, and
the like. Companies of this class are commonly described
as Statutory Companies. They are dealt with specially in
Chapter XXIII.