Long title | An Act to make better provision for Local Government in London. |
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Citation | 62 & 63 Vict. c. 14 |
Introduced by | Arthur Balfour |
Territorial extent | England and Wales |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 13 July 1899 |
Commencement | 1 November 1900 |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | London Government Act 1939 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The London Government Act 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. 14) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the administration of the capital. The act divided the County of London into 28 metropolitan boroughs, replacing the 41 parish vestries and district boards of works administering the area. The legislation also transferred a few powers from the London County Council to the boroughs, and removed a number of boundary anomalies. The first elections to the new boroughs were held on 1 November 1900. [1]
While an elected London County Council had been created by the Local Government Act 1888, the lower tier of local government still consisted of elective vestries and District boards of works created in 1855 by the Metropolis Management Act. In addition there were a number of areas outside the jurisdiction of any local authority.
In 1893, a Royal Commission on the Unification of London had been established with the purpose of making proposals on the amalgamation of the City of London with the county. In its report in 1894, the commission recommended increasing the power of the county council over the vestries and boards, with county councillors becoming ex officio members of the lower authorities, and the LCC gaining powers to frame by-laws to govern them.
In reaction to the report, the vestries sought a strengthening of the second tier of government in the capital. Charters of incorporation as a municipal borough were sought in 1896–1897 by Paddington vestry, the parishes of the City of Westminster and in Kensington. [2]
The London Municipal Society had been formed in 1894 to support the pro-Unionist Moderate candidates in London local elections. The stated policy of the Society at the 1897 vestry elections was "conferring on the local authorities of the metropolis municipal dignity and privileges". [3] In July the Society urged the Government to introduce legislation to create municipalities in London. [4]
In February 1898, a deputation attended the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and presented him with a memorial calling for municipal government in London. The common seals of nineteen vestries were affixed to the document. [5] Later in the year two private bills to create boroughs in London were introduced to the Commons, one by the member of Parliament for Islington West, Thomas Lough, and the second by a group of London local authorities.
The London Government Bill was introduced to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 1 March 1899, by Arthur Balfour, Leader of the House. It provided for the division of the administrative county of London, except the City of London, into metropolitan boroughs. Each borough was to be governed by a borough council consisting of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, the total number of which was not to exceed seventy-two.
The bill did not define areas for all the boroughs, but denoted sixteen existing parishes or districts that should become boroughs:
The remaining boroughs were to be made up of combinations of existing authorities with a rateable value exceeding 500,000 pounds or with a population of between 100,000 and 400,000 inhabitants.
The parliamentary debate centred on three issues: the boundaries of the boroughs, the need for aldermen on the councils and the admission of women to the councils.
Concern was voiced in the Commons by Thomas Lough and Richard Haldane (MP for Haddingtonshire in Scotland) about the fact that the boundaries of the boroughs not listed in the bill were to be fixed by boundary commissioners without parliamentary oversight. The conditions for constituting boroughs were altered with rateable value only being considered where the population was less than 100,000, allowing the commissioners to consider the creation of smaller boroughs.
Sydney Buxton (MP for Tower Hamlets, Poplar) was concerned that the upper population limit would lead to very large boroughs being formed in the east of London.
In the Lords, debate on the boundaries continued. An amendment by Lord Tweedmouth to ensure that the "Tower of London, and the liberties thereof" was included in the schedule with the area of the Whitechapel District was accepted. A second, unsuccessful, amendment was tabled by the Peer to divide the Wandsworth District into two boroughs: one comprising the parishes of Wandsworth and Putney; and the other Clapham, Streatham and Tooting. Lord Tweedmouth felt the area of the proposed borough was unwieldy, and his division was a natural one by means of Wandsworth Common. Lord Hawkesbury felt that the area of the parliamentary borough of Westminster was "far too large to be economically worked", and sought to divide it into two. The amendment was defeated. [6]
Edward Pickersgill, member for Bethnal Green South West moved to have aldermen removed from the borough councils. This was partly because he disagreed with aldermen on principle, but also because the creation of 400 or 500 new aldermen would "make the institution ridiculous and would accelerate its extinction". The amendment was defeated, with 140 votes for and 245 against.
Edmund Boulnois, member for Marylebone East moved an amendment to ban women from being mayors, aldermen or councillors of the new boroughs. Women had been elected members and chairmen of the existing vestries and district boards, and it followed that they could be elected to the new councils. Mr Boulnois believed that the work of the councils would be "distasteful to women" and that it would be "a pity to drag women into the turmoil of an election on political lines". He reminded members "If they allowed women to sit on these councils they would not be able to withhold from them the Parliamentary franchise and the right to sit and vote in that house." The amendment was carried with a majority of 102. [7] This was not the end of the issue, however. On 6 June at the report stage an amendment was carried allowing women to be councillors or aldermen (but not mayors) of the metropolitan boroughs. [8] This was overturned during the second reading on a motion by Lord Dunraven in the House of Lords on 26 June. [9] The Lords amendment was accepted by the Commons on 6 July by a majority of 243 to 174. [10]
The bill received royal assent on 13 July. [11]
Section 1 of the act stated "The whole of the administrative county of London, excluding the city of London, shall be divided into metropolitan boroughs". The boroughs were to be divided into wards, with three councillors for each ward. There were also to be alderman at a ratio of one to every six councillors. This followed the practice for the London County Council, rather than municipal boroughs, where the ratio was one alderman for every three councillors. The first election of councillors was set for 1 November 1900, with a third of the councillors going out of office each year. The chairman of the council was to have the title of mayor.
Unlike the municipal boroughs which received this status by the grant of a charter of incorporation, the metropolitan boroughs had no charters, being created by act of Parliament.
Section 4 (1) provided that every elected vestry and district board in the county of London would cease to exist, with the powers, properties and liabilities of the abolished authorities transferring to the metropolitan boroughs.
Section 5 (1) transferred a few minor functions to the boroughs from the London County Council. These were concerned with the licensing of dairymen, removal of obstructions and unauthorised signs and the licensing of wooden structures. The boroughs were also allowed to exercise some powers concurrently with the county council within their own boundaries: these involved the demolition of buildings, the regulation of water companies, the power to acquire land, the housing of the working classes and the power to make byelaws.
By section 6 (1), all main roads within a borough were transferred to their charge.
The act allowed for the London County Council and the metropolitan boroughs to transfer powers to and from each other, if both the county council and a majority of the boroughs agreed. A similar mechanism was included in the act in regard to the county council and the common council of the City of London.
Every part of a parish in the county of London that was wholly detached from the principal part of the parish was to be annexed or divided to the borough which it adjoined. Any detached part of another county surrounded by the county of London was to be transferred to the latter county, and incorporated into a metropolitan borough, while any part of the county of London surrounded by another county was to be similarly transferred.
Notable examples of parishes effected were:
A local board had been formed in Woolwich parish in 1852. It was the only parish in the metropolitan area to adopt legislation forming such a body. The board had a unique constitution, with some members elected and others nominated by the superintendent of the Royal Navy dockyard, the commanding officers of the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery, and the storekeeper of Her Majesty's Ordnance. The local board was dissolved by section 19 of the act, with its powers passing to the metropolitan borough of Woolwich.
Penge was a detached part of the parish of Battersea, several miles from its parent parish, administered by the Lewisham District Board, and on the edge of the county of London as created in 1889. Section 20 of the act sought to deal with this anomaly. It allowed an Order in Council to either incorporate the township into either of the metropolitan boroughs of Lewisham or Camberwell, or to form it into an urban district in one or other of the counties of Surrey or Kent. In the event, Penge became an urban district in Kent.
Section 21 allowed for Kensington Palace to be detached from the borough of Westminster and be transferred to the borough of Kensington by Order in Council, which was duly done. The presence of the palace with the borough led indirectly to its acquisition of "royal" status in 1901.
The Inner Temple and Middle Temple were deemed to be part of the City of London for the purposes of the act.
Schedule 1 of the act described the area of each of the 28 boroughs to be created. It did not give them names. Where the borough consisted of a single parish, or followed the area of a parliamentary constituency then it would take its name. In other cases, an "appropriate name" was to be given to the borough by Order in Council.
Borough | Area | Former authority |
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Battersea | Battersea Parish | Parish vestry |
Bermondsey | The area consisting of the parishes of Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Horsleydown and Southwark St. Olave and St. Thomas | Bermondsey Parish Vestry, Rotherhithe Parish Vestry, St Olave District Board of Works |
Bethnal Green | Bethnal Green Parish | Parish vestry |
Camberwell | Camberwell Parish | Parish vestry |
Chelsea | Chelsea Parish | Parish vestry |
Deptford | The area consisting of the parliamentary borough of Deptford | Greenwich District Board of Works (part) |
Finsbury | The area consisting of the parliamentary divisions of East and Central Finsbury | Clerkenwell Parish Vestry, St. Luke Parish Vestry, Holborn District Board of Works (part), Charterhouse (extra parochial place) |
Fulham | Fulham Parish | Parish vestry |
Greenwich | The area consisting of the parliamentary borough of Greenwich | Greenwich District Board of Works (part) |
Hackney | Hackney Parish | Parish vestry |
Hammersmith | Hammersmith Parish | Parish vestry |
Hampstead | Hampstead Parish | Parish Vestry |
Holborn | The area consisting of the parliamentary division of Holborn | Holborn District Board of Works (part), Funival's Inn, Gray's Inn, Staple Inn (extra parochial places) |
Islington | Islington Parish | Parish vestry |
Kensington | Kensington Parish | Parish vestry |
Lambeth | Lambeth Parish | Parish vestry |
Lewisham | The area consisting of the parliamentary borough of Lewisham | Lee District Board of Works (part), Lewisham District Board of Works |
Paddington | Paddington Parish | Parish vestry |
Poplar | The district of the Poplar Board of Works | Poplar District Board of Works |
St. Marylebone | St. Marylebone Parish | Parish vestry |
St. Pancras | St Pancras Parish | Parish vestry |
Shoreditch | Shoreditch Parish | Parish vestry |
Southwark | The area consisting of the parishes of Southwark St. George the Martyr, Southwark Christchurch, Southwark St. Saviour and Newington | Newington Parish Vestry, Southwark St. George the Martyr Parish Vestry, St Saviour's District Board of Works |
Stepney | The area consisting of the parishes of Mile End Old Town and St. George in the East and the districts of the Limehouse and Whitechapel Boards of Works, including the Tower of London and the liberties thereof | Mile End Old Town Parish Vestry, St. George in the East Parish Vestry, Limehouse District Board of Works, Whitechapel District Board of Works, Tower of London (extra parochial place) |
Wandsworth | The area consisting of the district of the Wandsworth Board of Works | Wandsworth District Board of Works (part) |
Westminster | The area consisting of the ancient parliamentary borough of Westminster | St. George Hanover Square Parish Vestry, St. Martin in the Fields Parish Vestry, Westminster St. James Parish vestry, Strand District Board of Works, Westminster District Board of Works, Close of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter (extra parochial place) |
Woolwich | The area consisting of the parliamentary borough of Woolwich | Plumstead Parish Vestry, Woolwich Parish Vestry, Lee District Board of Works (part) |
The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London, England; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at the same time as Greater London on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 and are a type of local government district. Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs. The City of London, the historic centre, is a separate ceremonial county and sui generis local government district that functions quite differently from a London borough. However, the two counties together comprise the administrative area of Greater London as well as the London Region, all of which is also governed by the Greater London Authority, under the Mayor of London.
The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government Act 1888. The Act created an administrative County of London, which included within its territory the City of London. However, the City of London and the County of London formed separate ceremonial counties for "non-administrative" purposes. The local authority for the county was the London County Council (LCC), which initially performed only a limited range of functions, but gained further powers during its 76-year existence. The LCC provided very few services within the City of London, where the ancient Corporation monopolised local governance. In 1900, the lower-tier civil parishes and district boards were replaced with 28 new metropolitan boroughs. The territory of the county was 74,903 acres (303.12 km2) in 1961. During its existence, there was a long-term decline in population as more residents moved into the outer suburbs; there were periodic reviews of the local government structures in the greater London area and several failed attempts to expand the boundaries of the county. In 1965, the London Government Act 1963 replaced the county with the much larger Greater London administrative area.
St Pancras was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 and became part of the County of London in 1889. The parish of St Pancras became a metropolitan borough in 1900, following the London Government Act 1899, with the parish vestry replaced by a borough council. In 1965 the borough was abolished and its former area became part of the London Borough of Camden in Greater London.
Islington was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish within the county of Middlesex, and formed part of The Metropolis from 1855. The parish was transferred to the County of London in 1889 and became a metropolitan borough in 1900. It was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury to form the London Borough of Islington in Greater London in 1965.
The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington was a metropolitan borough in the County of London from 1900 to 1965, which since 1901 was known as the Royal Borough of Kensington, following the death of Queen Victoria, in accordance with her wishes.
Battersea was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in the County of London, England. In 1965, the borough was abolished and its area combined with parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth to form the London Borough of Wandsworth. The borough was administered from Battersea Town Hall on Lavender Hill. That building is now Battersea Arts Centre.
The Metropolitan Borough of Hackney was a metropolitan borough of the County of London from 1900 to 1965. Its area became part of the London Borough of Hackney.
Bethnal Green was a civil parish and a metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1899 and 1965, when it was merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney and the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar to form the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington was a metropolitan borough in the County of London between 1900 and 1965 when it became part of the London Borough of Hackney.
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in the 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894, which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry.
West Ham was a local government district in the extreme south west of Essex from 1886 to 1965, forming part of the built-up area of London, although outside the County of London. It was immediately north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea.
Penge was a civil parish and a local government district located to the southeast of London, England. It included the settlements of Penge, Anerley and part of Crystal Palace. It was part of the London postal district, Metropolitan Police District and, from 1933, the London Passenger Transport Area. In 1965 the urban district was abolished by the London Government Act 1963 and it became part of Greater London, being combined with other districts to form the London Borough of Bromley.
The Local Government Act 1888 was an Act of Parliament which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect on 1 April 1889, except for the County of London, which came into existence on 21 March at the request of the London County Council.
The Local Government Act 1894 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888. The 1894 legislation introduced elected councils at district and parish level.
The London Government Act 1963 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which created Greater London and a new local government structure within it. The Act significantly reduced the number of local government districts in the area, resulting in local authorities responsible for larger areas and populations. The upper tier of local government was reformed to cover the whole of the Greater London area and with a more strategic role; and the split of functions between upper and lower tiers was recast. The Act classified the boroughs into inner and outer London groups. The City of London and its corporation were essentially unreformed by the legislation. Subsequent amendments to the Act have significantly amended the upper tier arrangements, with the Greater London Council abolished in 1986, and the Greater London Authority introduced in 2000. As of 2024, the London boroughs are more or less identical to those created in 1965, although with some enhanced powers over services such as waste management and education.
Oldham was, from 1849 to 1974, a local government district in the northwest of England coterminous with the town of Oldham.
The County Borough of Leeds, and its predecessor, the Municipal Borough of Leeds, was a local government district in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, from 1835 to 1974. Its origin was the ancient borough of Leeds, which was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. In 1889, when West Riding County Council was formed, Leeds became a county borough outside the administrative county of the West Riding; and in 1893 the borough gained city status. The borough was extended a number of times, expanding from 21,593 acres (8,738 ha) in 1911 to 40,612 acres (16,435 ha) in 1961; adding in stages the former area of Roundhay, Seacroft, Shadwell and Middleton parishes and gaining other parts of adjacent districts. In 1971 Leeds was the fifth largest county borough by population in England. The county borough was abolished in 1974 and replaced with the larger City of Leeds, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire.
The Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London was a royal commission which considered the means for amalgamating the ancient City of London with the County of London, which had been created in 1889. The commission reported in 1894. The government headed by Lord Rosebery accepted the recommendations of the commission, but when a Conservative government under Lord Salisbury came to power in 1895 the reforms were almost entirely abandoned.
The Royal Commission on the Corporation of the City of London was a royal commission, established in 1853, which considered the local government arrangements of the City of London and the surrounding metropolitan area.
Woolwich, also known as Woolwich St Mary, was an ancient parish containing the town of Woolwich on the south bank of the Thames and North Woolwich on the north bank. The parish was governed by its vestry from the 16th century to 1852, based in the Church of St Mary until 1842, after which in the purpose-built Woolwich Town Hall. The parish adopted the Public Health Act 1848 and was governed by the Woolwich Local Board of Health from 1852. When the parish became part of the district of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 the local board was treated as if it were an incorporated vestry. It was in the county of Kent until it was transferred to London in 1889. In 1900 it was amalgamated with other parishes to form the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich and had only nominal existence until it was abolished as a civil parish in 1930. Since 1965 it has been split between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Newham.