The internet was originally established during the 1970s and was known as the Arpanet. By the 1980s a parallel system, the Joint Academic Network (JANET) was set up in the UK and used by Universities, the Ministry of Defence and research organisations to communicate electronically with one another. By the early 1990s, the emerging internet service providers such as Demon, Pipex and BT became involved with the network and started to provide domain names to customers on a commercial basis.

Most countries have their own Top Level Domain.  The .uk TLD was first used during the 1980s, and at that time a voluntary group called the Naming Committee managed the registration of .uk domain names. 

By the early 1990s, commercial companies started to sell domain names to customers.  As demand for domain name registrations grew, it became clear that a voluntary group could no longer cope with the volume of registrations being requested.  A new organisation was needed to manage the .uk TLD and as a result Nominet UK was formed.
There was discussion about what type of corporation the Registry should be. The options to set-up as a profit-making company or a charity were rejected, and Nominet was established in 1996 as a private, not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee.