Local Government in Context

Abstract

The rise of local government is closely tied to the process of ndustrialisation which gathered momentum in Britain from the middle of the eighteenth century. The movement of population from rural to urban areas was accompanied by severe problems of overcrowding, law and order, and ill-health. The immediate response to this was the creation of a series of ad hoc, single-purpose bodies which included poor law boards, turnpike trusts and boards of improvement commissioners. The powers of the improvement commissioners varied but often included responsibility for paving, cleansing, the lighting of streets and the provision of watchmen. These ad hoc responses were viewed by many as inadequate in administrative terms. Moreover, the ad hoc bodies operated alongside a system of local government institutions effectively controlled by Tory squires and traditional landowning interests. The propsperous entrepreneurs that increasingly dominated the expanding towns and cities resented their lack of control over the full range of civic affairs. In response to these pressures the 1835 act created elected municipal councils and gave to them a range of powers and property.