46.
Victoria in 1864[1] and South Australia in 1864[2]. Other colonies followed more slowly: Tasmania in 1869[3], New South Wales in 1874[4] and Western Australia in 1893[5]. The Queensland Act contained a provision equivalent to s 21 of the 1862 UK Act; the Victorian Act did not.
104 Section 21 of the 1862 UK Act (and the equivalent provision in The Companies Act 1863 (Q)) was directed to companies, as distinct from corporations, formed for certain purposes not involving the acquisition of gain by the company or its members. Neither the 1862 UK Act, nor any of the Acts of the Australian colonies derived from that Act, prohibited the association of any number of persons for pursuit of non-profit purposes. The prohibitions contained in the 1862 UK Act and its derivatives, on which those Acts turned, were prohibitions directed against the pursuit of commercial ventures by associations of more than certain numbers of persons without incorporation.
105 The 1862 UK Act and its derivatives provided for the incorporation of any group of seven or more persons "associated for any lawful Purpose"[6] as a company limited by shares or by guarantee. Towards the end of the nineteenth century provision was made, in some Acts, for some non-profit associations to be incorporated as limited liability corporations but dispensed from the obligation to include the word "limited" in their name[7].
- ↑ The Companies Statute 1864 (Vic), the long title of which was "An Act for the Incorporation Regulation and Winding-up of Trading Companies and other Associations".
- ↑ The Companies Act 1864 (SA).
- ↑ The Companies Act 1869 (Tas).
- ↑ Companies Act 1874 (NSW).
- ↑ The Companies Act 1893 (WA).
- ↑ 1862 UK Act, s 6.
- ↑ See, for example, Literary Associations Incorporation Act 1883 (Vic); Companies Act 1890 (Vic), s 181.
