Boards of improvement commissioners were ad hoc urban local government boards created during the 18th and 19th centuries in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its predecessors the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. Around 300 boards were created, each by a local act of Parliament, typically termed an improvement act. [1] The powers of the boards varied according to the acts which created them. They often included street paving, cleansing, lighting, providing watchmen or dealing with various public nuisances. [2] Those with restricted powers might be called lighting commissioners, paving commissioners, police commissioners, etc.
Older urban government forms included the corporations of ancient boroughs, vestries of parishes, and in some cases the lord of the manor. These were ill-equipped for the larger populations of the Industrial Revolution: the most powerful in theory, the corporations, were also the most corrupt; and many new industrial towns lacked borough status. While Binfield states that the first improvement commission in Great Britain was the Manchester Police Commission, established by the Manchester Improvement Act 1765 (5 Geo. 3. c. 81), followed by the Birmingham Street Commissioners established by the Birmingham Improvement Act 1769 (9 Geo. 3. c. 83), [3] the Webbs list the Commissioners of Scotland Yard, formed by the London and Westminster Streets Act 1662 (14 Cha. 2. c. 2) for sewerage and street-cleaning in the City of London and City of Westminster, [4] and then New Sarum by the New Sarum Improvement Act 1736 (10 Geo. 2. c. 6), and Liverpool in 1748 by the Liverpool Improvement Act 1747 (21 Geo. 2. c. 24), [5] as well as various harbour commissioners from 1698. [6] Jones and Falkus give the number of such bodies created: [7]
| Period | 1725–49 | 1750–59 | 1760–69 | 1770–79 | 1780–89 | 1790–99 |
|---|
| Number | 4 | 17 | 31 | 36 | 39 | 33 |
|---|
Improvement acts empowered the commissioners to fund their work by levying rates. Some acts specified named individuals to act as commissioners, who replenished their number by co-option. Other commissions held elections at which all ratepayers could vote, or took all those paying above a certain rate as automatic members. [3] During the mid-19th century, some commissions came under Chartist control, for example, the Manchester Police and Gas Commissions, the Leeds Improvement Commission, the Bradford Highway Commission and the Sheffield Highway Commission. [8]
Improvement commissioners were gradually superseded by reformed municipal boroughs (from 1835) and boards of health (from 1848), which absorbed commissioners' powers by promoting private acts. [9] From 1872 England and Wales were divided into urban and rural sanitary districts, with improvement commissioners districts (also termed improvement act districts) becoming a type of urban sanitary district. [10] Those improvement commissioners still acting as urban sanitary authorities by 1894 had their districts converted into urban districts, governed instead by an elected council. [11] Harbour commissioners remained separate in many cases, and they or their successor body are the competent harbour authority in many UK ports.
In Ireland the first and best known improvement commission was the Dublin Wide Streets Commission by the Parliament Street Act 1757 (31 Geo. 2. c. 19 (I)), which covered the area of Dublin Corporation and the adjoining Liberties. [12] Newtown Pery was governed by improvement commissioners from 1807 until 1853, when it was absorbed into Limerick city. [13] The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 108) abolished most corporations, but the ad hoc improvement commissioners were superseded by standardised town commissioners appointed under the terms of acts of Parliament of 1828 and later.
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