‘That Ever-Memorable Year of Epidemical Infatuation’: Incorporation, the Jamaica Mines Company, and the Bubble Act of 1720

Scholars have argued that the Bubble Act of 1720 frustrated company formation in Britain, resulting in over a century of lost economic growth. More recently, Ron Harris and others have argued that it actually had limited effect, since workarounds were found and, in any case, the commercial demand for incorporation was low. This chapter tests his argument with reference to the Jamaica Mines Company, founded in 1720 during the South Sea Bubble to prospect for gold in that island. It shows that the company was not a fraud but a bona fide commercial venture, but that its corporate form offered few advantages for entrepreneurs, and even eventually proved its downfall. Ultimately the Bubble Act therefore made little difference, since the commercial and financial advantages that incorporation offered in this period were therefore less marked than has often been assumed.