Local Government Act 1888 - Passage Through Parliament

Passage Through Parliament

There were a large number of changes to the Bill as it passed through parliament. The terms administrative county and county borough were introduced to designate the new areas of local government, while the "selected councillors" became "county aldermen". The government withdrew the sections relating to the creation of district councils, which were eventually brought into existence by the Local Government Act 1894.

Members of both houses made representations on behalf of counties and boroughs, and this led to an increase in the number of local authorities.

• The eastern and western divisions of Sussex became administrative counties
• The Isle of Ely was separated from Cambridgeshire
• The eastern and western divisions of Suffolk were divided for local government purposes.
• The Soke of Peterborough was separated from the remainder of Northamptonshire.

Attempts to create administrative counties for the Cinque Ports and Staffordshire Potteries were not successful.

The population limit for county boroughs was lowered twice, firstly to 100,000, then to 50,000. A number of smaller counties corporate were also given county borough status. Mr Ritchie conceded on 8 June:

"Now that they had gone down so far in population as 50,000 there arose a question as to the admission of boroughs which had not so large a population as 50,000, but which had very peculiar claims. He referred to the counties of cities."...

"Two or three of these cities had so small a population that he did not propose to deal with them in this way. The best course was to give the names of the cities which he proposed to include. They were Exeter, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, Worcester, and Canterbury."

The effect of these changes was to increase the number of county boroughs from ten to fifty-nine. With a population of around 50,000 at the 1881 census, the City of London was initially proposed for county borough status.