Metropolitan Board of Works

The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of London-wide government from 1856 until the establishment of the London County Council in 1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to cope with London's rapid growth, which it accomplished. The MBW was an appointed rather than elected body. This lack of accountability made it unpopular with Londoners, especially in its latter years when it fell prey to corruption.

Read more about Metropolitan Board Of Works:  Background, Creation, Organisation, Scandals, Abolition, Chairmen of The Metropolitan Board of Works

Famous quotes containing the words metropolitan, board and/or works:

    In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
    As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
    But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
    Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

    When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)