ABSTRACT
The investments made by railway companies that were registered and controlled from Britain, but whose operations were overseas, constituted an important component of British foreign direct investment (FDI) in the early twentieth century. Despite the collective scale of these firms, little research on their activities has been integrated into discussions of early British FDI or the nature of free-standing companies. This article clarifies the scale and significance of these overseas railway companies within overall British FDI, along with examining how they were managed. This sheds further light on the development of British FDI and on the form and function of the free-standing company.
