History
By the 19th century the City of London Corporation covered only a small fraction of metropolitan London. From 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) had certain powers across the metropolis, but it was appointed rather than elected. Many powers remained in the hands of traditional bodies such as parishes and the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. The creation of the LCC in 1889, as part of the Local Government Act 1888, was forced by a succession of scandals involving the MBW, and was also prompted by a general desire to create a competent government for the city, capable of strategising and delivering services effectively. While the Conservative government of the day would have preferred not to create a single body covering the whole of London, their electoral pact with Liberal Unionists led them to this policy. Shortly after its creation a Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London considered the means for amalgamation with the City of London. Although this was not achieved, it led to the creation of 28 metropolitan boroughs as lower tier authorities to replace the various local vestries and boards in 1900; they assumed some powers of the LCC and shared others.
Read more about this topic: London County Council
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
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—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)