Companies Act 1862
1862 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Act of Parliament 25 & 26 Vic c. 89
The Companies Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 89) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom regulating UK company law, whose descendant is the Companies Act 2006.
Provisions
s 6 'Any seven or more persons associated for any lawful purpose may, by subscribing their names to a memorandum of association, and otherwise complying with the requisitions of this Act in respect of registration, form an incorporated company, with or without limited liability.'
s 8 'Where a company is formed on the principle of having the liability of its members limited to the amount unpaid on their shares, hereinafter referred to as a company limited by shares, the Memorandum of Association shall contain the following things' the third of which was 'objects for which the proposed company is to be established.'
s 11 'The memorandum of association... shall, when registered, bind the company and the members thereof to the same extent as if each member had subscribed his name and affixed his seal thereto, and there were in the memorandum contained, on the part of himself, his heirs, executors and administrators, a covenant to observe all the conditions of such memorandum, subject to the provisions of this Act.'
s 12 stated the memorandum could be altered by special resolution if the memorandum allowed itselfthat.
s 18 dealt with the effect of incorporation.
s 48
s 153
Under section 167 of the Companies Act 1862, one of the functions of a liquidator was to bring criminal proceedings against directors and others who were alleged to have committed offences in relation to the company.
Repeal
The whole act was repealed by section 28 of, and part I of the sixth schedule to, the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908 (8 Edw. 7. c.
“Companies Act 1862” enters the record as 1862 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Act of Parliament 25 & 26 Vic c. 89. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Companies, United and Kingdom can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Companies Act 1862” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Companies, United and Kingdom provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5155389. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1862, 2006 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “Companies Act 1862” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.