Limited Liability Act of 1855

Examines the Limited Liability Act 1855 and highlights its significance in the formation of the modern company's legal framework. Looks at the background to the Act, which was repealed after a few months and incorporated in the Joint Stock Companies Act 1856 in an amended form. Considers the Act's legacy in extending the general principle of limited liability for corporate debts to shareholders of registered companies, including its implications in allowing a greater diversification of shareholders.

Dissolving views, memory and sensory experience: The Cosmopoligraphicon or the ‘World in Many Pictures’ in Melbourne, Australia, in 1855

While magic lanterns and dissolving views were a global phenomenon in the nineteenth century, scholars are only starting to examine in depth their social dimensions. This article seeks to extend our understanding of dissolving views by analysing the audience sensory experience in a specific historical context – gold rush Melbourne in 1855. It argues that while a Melbourne audience admired the technological wonder of the magic lantern and the dissolving views, their sensory experience was informed by the colonial social context. The audiences appear to have delighted in immersing themselves in the dissolving views, both learning about the world and reacquainting themselves with parts of the (old) world they had left behind. This article further argues that dissolving views were more than a visual spectacle: they actively engaged the senses in ways that gave emotional meanings to the dissolving views and linked a Melbourne gold rush audience with the world left behind, yet still accessible remotely through memory and sensory imagination.