General Maritime Assurance Company

The General Maritime Assurance Company appears to have been established in London in 1839 with an authorised capital of one million pounds. At a time when there was a great deal of activity in the promotion of specialist marine insurance companies, of the authorised ten thousand shares, only 7,500 were allotted; by 1848 only five thousand were still registered. The affairs of the company did not flourish, and the company seems to have ceased trading in 1848. The directors of the company, who also took charge of its liquidation, were defendants in Hallet v Dowdall, 1852, a case concerning the liability of shareholders in insurance claims.