Autograph hunting in Companies House

The UK register of businesses - Companies House - has an online record of every company in the UK. It contains articles of incorporation, statement of accounts, and all sorts of legal documents. Everything which has been digitised is freely available. Yay for public records!

Famous and important people have companies. Lots of them use lawyers and accountants to handle their business affairs. But occasionally they have to sign their own paperwork.

I've spent a bit of lockdown sperlunking through some of the old and interesting documents. Here's what I found, feel free to add your own curios in the comments box.

The Beatles

I'm a big Beatles fan. You can read the documents related to "The Beatles Ltd" going back to 1967.

And there, nestled in a document changing The Beatles Ltd to Apple Music Ltd is George Harrison's signature.

Monty Python

All the documents I could find were signed by lawyers - but this one has a nice titbit.

James Bond

Sir Sean Connery was briefly a director of Independent News And Media Ltd

Science Fiction (Double Feature)

The British Science Fiction Association has a long and turbulent history.

Right at its incorporation are signatures from Brian Aldiss, E.C. Tubb, H. Kenneth Bulmer, and others.

Spies like us

Former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington became a Director of Refuge.

Of course, that's probably not her real signature!

Amy Winehouse

The troubled singer was the Director of several companies.

Steve Jobs

Is there a point to any of this?

Well, it's not exactly like I can leave the house to go autograph hunting. Right?