Company Secretary

[joette]

Any idea of where to look for the role/duties of a Company Secretary?
I have been looking at my Great-Grandfather's half brother's descendants-James Cooper(who my Grandfather was named for & set me looking for a female Waddell marrying a James Cooper when in fact it was James Cooper AKA Waddell)
He(James) was killed at work as a stonemason .His wife Mary Bryce was left widowed with six children to raise.
The eldest & youngest son were working as Stonemasons-the eldest as an employer & the youngest as a apprentice in the 1901 Census.William Waddell is living with them in 1881 Census(a brother of my Great-Grandpa & I spent forever looking for a Mary Waddell marriage when it was her hubby who was the blood relative)
At some point the eldest became a Company Secretary & I was wondering if anybody knew what this would have entailed.
The children -the ones whose marriages/deaths I have found seem to have lived at home until a fair age-the eldest was 34 when he married in 1901.They all had training / apprenticeships "respectable" employment so their Mother obviously managed well after being widowed.She must have been a tough old bird as she outlived her eldest son & youngest daughter.
I now think this is where several of my Mum's "cousins" descend from too & many of her childhood times were spent with James Cooper's grandchildren/great-grandchildren.

[emanday]

I don't know what it would have entailed then, but while I was working as an IT Contractor running my own Limited company, the rules required that there had to be a "Company Secretary" as well as me as "Director". Purely for legal purposes, I designated my daughter to the post (unpaid as she didn't actually do anything ).

My accountant told me that many so-called "Company Secretaries" actually take no part in the running of a business these days, and it is often only a title given to someone to satisfy the legal requirements.

[AndrewP]

Hi Joette,

See http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/19/1 ... t-do.shtml for a description of the responsibilities of a Company Secretary. I don't know if these responsibilities have changed much over the years.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Russell]

Hi Joette

I'm a director in a limited charitable company and our Company Secretary duties are more akin to those of an Accountant much like those in Andrew's reference.
He keeps the books, organises the VAT returns and clawbacks, arranges the annual audit and the returns to Companies House or wherever they go to.
We have a separate Minute Secretary for Board meetings, but as a very small board we could organise it almost any way we like.
The Senior Executive or Managing Director post actually carries most of the actual business organisational activites.

Russell

[Currie]

Hello Joette,

The duties of a Company Secretary don’t appear to have changed much in the last 100 years.

Encyclopædia of the laws of England – 1908. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=7Qs ... 8Q6AEwATgK

The duties of a company secretary are multifarious. He is present at all Board meetings and at all general meetings of the company, and takes minutes of the proceedings. He conducts the correspondence of the company, gives notices of meetings, keeps the books of the company, the register of members, the share ledger, the transfer books, and the register of mortgages and charges; he prepares the Annual Return to the Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies under sec. 26 of the Companies Act, 1862, and this summary must be signed by him or by the manager of the company (Companies Act, 1900, s. 19 (2))

Full text of this with much more detail available here, page 201, a quarter of the way through. http://www.archive.org/stream/encyclopa ... t_djvu.txt

Alan

[joette]

Thanks for that folks lots of interesting reading & much as I thought the duties might be.
Now all I have to find is the company he worked for....

[Beckenham1]

In those days it’s almost certainly the case that a house came with the job. It would not have been far from the place of employment either.
Jim