In 1888 Parliament created the ‘new’ County of London out of the existing counties of Middlesex, Essex, Kent and Surrey. At the same time it also created administrative counties throughout the rest of the country. The old Board of Works which had been set up in 1855 was abolished and a new London County Council, with increased powers, took its place. This has been heralded as the beginning of effective London Government, but this is not so. London Government goes back to a time before the Roman invasion of Britain. The Romans used the Thames as their access route in their penetration of southern Britain; the geographical site of London was the farthest inland point at which the Thames was easily navigable by sea-going vessels. With their flair for organisation and engineering, the Romans developed the community they found on this site into a port, and made this the focal centre for their fine network of roads from the Kent coast into eastern and northern areas beyond. They were to occupy London for the next four centuries.
At the time the Romans evacuated, London had become a walled and fortified town—something the Romans did after the disastrous raids by the Iceni under the leadership of Queen Boadicea, during the latter part of the Roman occupation. The area of this walled community was to remain almost static down the years until the great Fire in 1666.
The Romans gave London its name and its status as a port and a centre of communications. The Anglo-Saxons provided many of London's present day governmental institutions, that were not to acquire their full importance until more than a thousand years had passed, and the 1888 Act became law.
London, in common with the other Roman communities, was not reoccupied immediately by the Germanic invaders who, being accustomed to building only with timber, were unable to repair the crumbling stone buildings that were left behind. But London’s geographical site was too attractive to lie idle for any significant period, so that during the latter Saxon era the small fortified town began once again to come alive and re-assert itself as the leading community in Southern Britain, in time enjoying a high degree of autonomy in the administration of two key aspects of local affairs—markets and money.
Threatened by continued raids by Danish invaders, the several Saxon 'kings' established a “burghal” system of fortified communities in an effort to continue an ordered life. London, by virtue of its position, became one of the key centres of fortification when Alfred the Great established his chain of protected towns throughout Southern England. London was further strengthened, during the Saxon period, by the creation and establishment of eight mints, as against six in Winchester (the capital of Wessex) and four in Canterbury.
The burghal system served to shape the development of English local government, setting into motion at this very early date the basis for the semi-autonomous boroughs and fusing into English political thought a strong "localist" tradition which served as a potent force throughout the feudalist period. The early Saxon precedents established the concept of the "Royal Charter" as the machinery to be used in conferring a degree of administrative autonomy upon local communities.
After their conquest in 1066, the Norman French were reluctant to permit the newly conquered English communities to continue to exercise any great degree of local self-government. Instead the new rulers, fearful of potential revolt by a restive population, set about the creation of a strong centralised system of government under the direct control of the crown. But the Norman rulers needed money to administer the affairs of their newly conquered island, so they accepted the practice of selling off Royal Charters to the wealthier cities, and London took full advantage of William’s offer. Sometime between 1068-1075 London received its full charter which, while not conferring any new powers, did ratify the citizens' rights and privileges already in existence, which they had enjoyed under Saxon rule. By a long succession of Charters, purchased and renewed, London maintained its importance, so much so that at the time of Magna Carta, a clause was inserted which assured the City of all its ancient rights, privileges and free customs and granted the practice of the annual election of a Mayor and other local officials.
As the population of London grew, so also did its economic importance. During the Middle Ages societies and guilds began to grow up, organised at first on a friendly basis, to assist the aged, sick and needy. But these organisations soon were to take on a greater importance, as they became amalgamated with various craft and merchant groups. In time they became the powerful City guilds, controlling not only their particular interests in trade, but controlling the City's administration. The guilds had learnt the lesson of the City, the power that could be attained with the purchase of Royal Charters of incorporation, which gave them the right to elect their own Wardens and their members onto the Common Council of the City, which in turn elected the Mayor—plus the Members of Parliament for London. The guilds continued to exercise a complete stranglehold over London Government right up to the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832. Today remnants of the original London guilds remain in the form of 82 livery companies.
The exodus from the City into the surrounding countryside had begun in the Elizabethan period, when groups of tradesmen and workers in several crafts sought to escape the stranglehold of the guilds. But the great exodus took place in the mid-seventeenth century, as a direct result of two tragic events which followed each other —the Plague and the Fire.
Upwards of eighty thousand people fled from the fire, and six years later fewer than one in four were to return. The significance of this was not immediately noticed, because large numbers of workers came into the City and its surrounding areas, attracted by the developing industrial communities springing up along the line of the Thames. This growth and urban sprawl continued for the next two hundred years, determining which people moved in which direction. Eastwards the drift continued with the settlement of vast armies of labouring poor, attracted to the growing port extensions that were now under construction. Thousands of rows of humble dwellings were hastily run up by speculative builders to house the growing numbers that were now settling in what was to become the East End and later to develop into terrible slums, heavily overcrowded. Westward from the City drifted the wealthier. Vast ornate estates of fine houses and villas were provided at great cost and skill, so that today, in Belgravia and adjacent areas, we can see and admire the skill and taste which the wealthy enjoyed and still enjoy. In east, south and parts of north London, there still remain areas of slum property run up to house the poor.
The development of railways, tubes, tramways and other forms of transportation throughout the Victorian period extended the further sprawl of urban communities. The slums of the East now extended onto the South bank and continued to spread.
During the whole of this growth, the City still continued its dominance over its one square mile, and attempted to control some of the administrative functions of its neighbours. But the City Corporation had no interest in extending its historic boundaries. So instead, within the several and varied communities outside the City's control, there grew up a patchwork system of local administration, which was neither powerful enough nor comprehensive in its geographical scale to provide order in the government of the growing suburbia.
As the nineteenth century dawned, a greater degree of restlessness began to manifest itself; the chaos and confusion at attempts to localise and control administration became legion. Strong movements began to organise for local political, economic and electoral reform, ugly riots broke out and for a time London came under the control of the mobs. This all goaded Parliament into facing the vast problem of municipal reform. As a result of the mob riots, they passed in 1829 the London Police Act, which represented the first coherent attempt to deal with Greater London as a geographical unity, by establishing a Metropolitan Police district extending in a 15 mile radius from Charing Cross. But the City received special treatment, being allowed to establish and administer its own police force, which is still in existence.
By 1834-35, Parliament began to tackle some of the broader issues of local reform, commencing with the Poor Law Amendment Act, designed to break the power of privileged property classes over local government control by substituting elected local Boards of Guardians to administer relief for the poor. The Municipal Reform Act in 1835 went a step further by creating conditions for elective councils to govern the affairs of all boroughs in England. But the City was again singled out, and excluded entirely from the provisions of the 1835 Act. It was not until 1855 that Greater London's needs were finally considered with the setting up by Parliament of a special body to be known as the Metropolitan Board of Works, thus abolishing all the little local bodies and creating instead larger bodies under the title of "administrative vestry” elected by local inhabitants. The smaller parishes were grouped into districts and given an elected District Board. In all 41 vestries and boards were set up under the control of the Board of Works.
The Metropolitan Board of Works set into motion the construction of 82 miles of sewers, it controlled the construction of the Victoria and Albert embankments, created several parks and open spaces, constructed several major road improvements and developed a centralised London Fire Brigade. But it was not careful with its accounts, and much scandal became attached to its handling of its funds. Moreover its members were appointed by each other—which put the Board outside the control of any administrative authority.
After the passing of the 1888 Act and the creation of the London County Council the Board became defunct. In 1889 the London parishes and districts were re-grouped and formed into 28 Metropolitan Boroughs. They continued like this until with the passing of the London Government Act in 1963 they were re-grouped and the administrative areas enlarged, this time encompassing the whole of the County of Middlesex, large sections of metropolitan Essex, Kent and Surrey. This re-organisation made 32 larger boroughs with control vested in the Greater London Council, which replaced the L.C.C.
Some disagreement exists over the question of when the national political parties made their first inroads into local governments, and who was responsible for this development. The Labour Party claim that the Conservatives and the Liberals bear the responsibility, and point to the history of the Whigs and Tories during the reform era to back up this assertion. Certainly the London County Council was intensely political from its inception in 1888, with two opposing groups calling themselves ‘Progressives’ and ‘Moderates’. In 1907 it became a clear battle between the Liberals (Progressives) and the Conservatives then calling themselves Municipal Reformers, who retained political control for 27 years, until in 1934 the long reign of the Labour Party began, ending last month with the election of the Conservatives.
V. W. Phillips
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