- Wikipedia: British colonization
- What is colonization?
- What is mercantilism?
- History of company law in the United Kingdom.
- 1357: The Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York. Merchant Adventurers' Hall.
- 1407: The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London was a trading company founded in the City of London in the early 15th century.
- 1497: King Henry VII of England dispatched an expedition led by John Cabot to explore the coast of North America, but the lack of precious metals or other riches discouraged both the Spanish and English from permanently settling in North America during the early 17th century.
- The Spanish Company was an English chartered company or corporate body established in 1530, and 1577, confirmed in 1604, and re-established in 1605 as President, Assistants and Fellowship of Merchants of England trading into Spain and Portugal, whose purpose was the facilitation and control of English trade between England and Spain through the establishment of a corporate monopoly of approved merchants.
- 1553: The Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands was an early joint stock association, which began with private exploration and enterprise, and was to have been incorporated by King Edward VI in 1553, but received its full royal charter in 1555.
- 1578: After receiving letters patent on 11 June 1578, Gilbert set sail in November 1578 with a fleet of seven vessels from Plymouth in Devon for North America. The fleet was scattered by storms and forced back to port some six months later.
- 1584: Walter Raleigh took up the cause of North American colonization, sponsoring an expedition of 500 men to Roanoke Island. In 1584, the colonists established the first permanent English colony in North America, but the colonists were poorly prepared for life in the New World, and by 1590, the colonists had disappeared.
- The Marocco Company or Barbary Company was a trading company established by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1585 through a patent granted to the Earls of Warwick and Leicester, as well as forty others.
- 1585 Bernard Drake launched an expedition to Newfoundland which crippled the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets there from which they never recovered.
- 1600: The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874.
- In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to both the Plymouth Company and the London Company for the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in North America.
- 1607: - Martin Frobisher and Henry Hudson sailed to the New World in search of a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Ocean and Asia, but were unable to find a viable route.
- 1607: The Popham Colony—also known as the Sagadahoc Colony—was a short-lived English colonial settlement in North America. It was established in 1607 by the proprietary Plymouth Company
- 1607: Jamestown: It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S.
- 1610: The London and Bristol Company came about in the early 17th century when English merchants had begun to express an interest in the Newfoundland fishery. Financed by a syndicate of investors John Guy, himself a Bristol merchant, visited Newfoundland in 1608 to locate a favourable site for a colony. Upon his return to England 40 people applied for incorporation as the Tresurer and the Companye of Adventurers and planter of the Cittye of london and Bristoll for the Collonye or plantacon in Newfoundland. The company was known as the London and Bristol Company or simply the Newfoundland Company. The company was granted a charter by James I on May 2, 1610, giving it a monopoly in agriculture, mining, fishing and hunting on the Avalon Peninsula.
- 1618: The Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa, more commonly known as "the Guinea Company", was a private joint stock company founded to trade in Africa for profit. It was a trading company trading in slaves,
- 1660: The Royal African Company (RAC) was an English trading company established up in 1660 by the House of Stuart and City of London merchants to trade along the West African coast.
