There is considerable scope for increasing the understanding of the history of share ownership. Existing studies of shareholders in the UK are limited in the industries, time periods and shareholder populations they study. This article outlines the methods used by the authors in an ESRC-funded study of shareholders in companies in England and Wales from 1870 to 1930. Data were drawn from companies' shareholder records — the Form Es submitted annually to the Registrar of Companies and the share registers and ledgers maintained by companies. The article outlines the rationale for the industrial sectors selected for study, the choice of companies and the basis on which shareholder records were sampled. The resulting database contains details of over 29,000 individual shareholders who collectively had over 33,000 shareholdings, and is larger and more representative of the investor population than any previously compiled in the UK.
Acheson, G.G. and Turner, J.D. (2006), "The Impact of Limited Liability on Ownership and Control: Irish Banking, 1877-1914", Economic History Review , Vol.59, No.2, pp.320-346.
2.
Bowen, H.V. (1989), "Investment and Empire in the Later Eighteenth Century: East India Stockholding, 1756-1791", Economic History Review, Vol.42, No.2, pp.186-206.
3.
Clapham, S.J. (1938), An Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol.3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
Davis, L.E. and Huttenback, R.A. (1987), Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860-1912, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Dixon, P., Garnham, N. and Jackson, A. (2004), "Shareholders and Shareholding: The Case of the Football Company in Late Victorian England", Business History , Vol.46, No.4, pp.503-24.
7.
Economist, The (1929), "Shareholders and Control" (30 March), pp.691-2.
8.
Essex-Crosby, A. (1938), "Joint Stock Companies in Great Britain 1890-1930", M.Comm thesis, University of London.
Franks, J.R., Mayer, C. and Rossi, S. (2005), "Ownership: Evolution and Regulation", ECGI - Finance Working Paper No. 09/2003.
12.
Freeman, M., Pearson, R. and Taylor, J. (2006), "`A Doe in the City': Women Shareholders in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-century Britain", Accounting, Business and Financial History, Vol.16, No.2, pp.265-91.
13.
Green, D.R. and Owens, A. (2003), "Gentlewomanly Capitalism: Widows and Wealth-Holding in England and Wales, c.1800-1860", Economic History Review , Vol.56, No.3, pp.510-36.
14.
Guildhall accounts file of Judische Colonialbank for 1900.
15.
Hickson, C.R. and Turner, J.D. (2003), "The Trading of Unlimited Liability Bank Shares in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: the Bagehot Hypothesis", Journal of Economic History, Vol.63, No.3, pp.931-58.
16.
Hudson, S. (2001), "Attitudes to Investment Risk amongst West Midland Canal and Railway Company Investors, 1760-1850", unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
17.
Kimmel, L.H. (1951) Share Ownership in the United States, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
18.
Lewis, A.S. (1862) How to keep Share Registers in the most easy and Expeditious Manner on a System now in use by various Joint Stock Companies and strictly in accordance with the Companies Act, London : Clarke.
19.
Maltby, J. and Rutterford, J. (2006) "`The Widow, the Clergyman and the Reckless': Women Investors before 1914", Feminist Economics, Vol.12, No.1-2, pp.111-38.
20.
Maltby, J. (2009), "The Relationship between Companies and their Shareholders: Greenwood & Batley and Hadfields", in Lloyd-Jones, R., Lewis, M.J. and Maltby, J. (eds.), Corporate Governance and Personal Capitalism, Aldershot : Ashgate.
21.
Morgan, E.V. and Thomas, W.A. (1962), The Stock Exchange: Its History and Functions , London: Elek Books.
22.
Newton, L. and Cottrell, P.L. (2006), "Female Investors in the First English and Welsh Commercial Joint-stock Banks", Accounting, Business and Financial History, Vol.16, No.2, pp.315-40.
23.
Newton, L.A. (2004), Credit and Capital in Sheffield: The Finance of Industry in Nineteenth-Century England, Aldershot: Ashgate.
24.
Parkinson, H. (1944) "Who owns the Railways?", Financial News, (31 October, 1, 2, 3 November), reprinted as pamphlet with foreword by Lord Royden, London.
25.
Parkinson, H. (1951), Ownership of Industry, London : Eyre & Spottiswoode.
26.
Phillips, J.A. (1979), "Achieving a Critical Mass While Avoiding Explosion: Letter-cluster Sampling and Nominal Record Linkage", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol.9, No.3, pp. 493-508.
27.
Richardson, S. (1994), "Letter Cluster Sampling and Nominal Record Linkage ", History and Computing, Vol.6, No.3, pp.168-76.
28.
Rutterford, J. and Maltby, J. (2006), "`She possessed her own fortune': Women Investors from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Early Twentieth Century", Business History, Vol.48, No.2, pp.220-53.
29.
Storrar, A.C. and Pratt, K.C. (2000), "Accountability versus Privacy, 1844-1907: The Coming of the Private Company", Accounting, Business and Financial History, Vol.10, No.3, pp.259-91.
30.
Van Helten, J.J. (1990), "Mining, Share Manias and Speculation: British Investment in Overseas Mining: 1880-1913", in Van Helten, J.J. and Cassis, Y. (eds.), Capitalism in a Mature Economy: Financial Institutions, Capital Exports and British Industry 1870-1939, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 159-85.
31.
Wilkins, M. (1989), The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
