Chapter VII: Government

Vestries.

Metropolitan Board of Works.

_Administration before 1888._--The middle of the 19th century found the whole local administration of London still of a medieval character. Moreover, as complete reform had always been steadily resisted, homogeneity was entirely wanting. Outside the City itself a system of local government can hardly be said to have existed. Greater London (in the sense in which that name might then have been applied) was governed by the inhabitants of each parish in vestry assembled, save that in some instances parishes had elected select vestries under the provisions of the Vestries Act 1831. In neither case had the vestry powers of town management. To meet the needs of particular localities, commissioners or trustees having such powers had been from time to time created by local acts. The resulting chaos was remarkable. In 1855 these local acts numbered 250, administered by not less than 300 bodies, and by a number of persons serving on them computed at 10,448. These persons were either self-elected, or elected for life, or both, and therefore in no degree responsible to the ratepayers. There were two bodies having jurisdiction over the whole metropolis except the City, namely, the officers appointed under the Metropolitan Building Act of 1844, and the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, appointed under the Commissioners of Sewers Act 1848. Neither body was responsible to the ratepayers. To remedy this chaotic state of affairs, the Metropolis Management Act 1855 was passed. Under that act a vestry elected by the ratepayers of the parish was established for each parish in the metropolis outside the City. The vestries so elected for the twenty-two larger parishes were constituted the local authorities. The fifty-six smaller parishes were grouped together in fifteen districts, each under a district board, the members of which were elected by the vestries of the constituent parishes. A central body, styled the Metropolitan Board of Works, having jurisdiction over the whole metropolis (including the City) was also established, the members of which were elected by the Common Council of the City, the vestries and district boards, and the previously established local board of Woolwich (q.v.). Further the area of the metropolis for local government purposes was for the first time defined, being the same as that adopted in the Commissioners of Sewers Act, which had been taken from the area of the weekly bills of mortality. The Metropolitan Board of Works was also given certain powers of supervision over the vestries and district boards, and superseded the commissioners of sewers as authority for main drainage. By an act of the same session it became the central authority for the administration of the Building Acts, and subsequently had many additional powers and duties conferred upon it. The vestries and district boards became the authorities for local drainage, paving, lighting, repairing and maintaining streets, and for the removal of nuisances, &c.

London County Council.

Metropolitan boroughs.

_Acts of 1888 and 1899._--An objection to the Metropolitan Board of Works soon became manifest, inasmuch as the system of election was indirect. Moreover, some of its actions were open to such suspicion that a royal commission was appointed to inquire into certain matters connected with the working of the board. This commission issued an interim report in 1888 (the final report did not appear until 1891), which disclosed the inefficiency of the board in certain respects, and also indicated the existence of corruption. Reform followed immediately. Already in 1884 Sir William Harcourt had attempted to constitute the metropolis a municipal borough under the government of a single council. But in 1888 the Local Government Act, dealing with the area of the metropolis as a separate county, created the London County Council as the central administrative body, possessing not only the powers of an ordinary county council, but also extensive powers of town management, transferred to it from the abolished Board of Works. Here, then, was the central body, under their direct control, which inhabitants of London had hitherto lacked. The question of subsidiary councils remained to be settled. The wealthier metropolitan parishes became discontented with the form of local government to which they remained subject, and in 1897 Kensington and Westminster petitioned to be created boroughs by the grant of charters under the Municipal Corporation Acts. These, however, were inapplicable to London, and it was realized that the bringing of special legislation to bear on special cases (as the petition of these two boroughs would have demanded) would be inexpedient as making against homogeneity. Instead, the London Government Act of 1899 was evolved. It brought into existence the twenty-eight Metropolitan boroughs enumerated at the outset of this article. The county of London may thus be regarded from the administrative standpoint as consisting of twenty-nine contiguous towns, counting the City of London. As regards the distribution of powers and duties between the County Council and the Borough Councils, and the constitution and working of each, the underlying principle may be briefly indicated as giving all powers and duties which require uniformity of action throughout the whole of London to the County Council, and powers and duties that can be locally administered to the Borough Councils.

_Summary of Administrative Bodies._--The administrative bodies of the
County of London may now be summarized:

1. _London County Council._--Consists of 118 councillors, 2 elected by
each parliamentary division (but the City of London elects 4); and 19
aldermen, with chairman, vice-chairman and deputy-chairman, elected in
council. Triennial elections of councillors by householders (male and
female) on the rate-books. Aldermen hold office for 6 years.

2. _Metropolitan Boroughs._--Councils consist of a mayor and aldermen
and councillors in proportion as 1 to 6. The commonest numbers, which
cannot be exceeded, are 10 and 60 (see separate article on each
borough). Triennial elections.

3. _Corporation of the City of London._--The legislation of 1855, 1888
and 1899 left the government of the small area of the City in the
hands of an unreformed Corporation. Here at least the medieval system,
in spite of any anomalies with respect to modern conditions, has
resisted reform, and no other municipal body shares the traditions and
peculiar dignity of the City Corporation. This consists of a Lord
Mayor, 26 aldermen and 206 common councilmen, forming the Court of
Common Council, which is the principal administrative body. Its scope
may be briefly indicated as including (a) duties exercised elsewhere
by the Borough Councils, and by the London County Council (although
that body is by no means powerless within the City boundaries); and
(b) peculiar duties such as control of markets and police. The
election of common councilmen, whose institution dates from the reign
of Edward I., takes place annually, the electors being the ratepayers,
divided among the twenty-five wards of the City. An alderman (q.v.) of
each ward (save that the wards of Cripplegate within and without,
share one) is elected for life. The Lord Mayor (q.v.) is elected by
the Court of Aldermen from two aldermen nominated in the Court of
Common Hall by the Livery, an electorate drawn from the members of the
ancient trade gilds or Livery Companies (q.v.), which, through their
control over the several trades or manufactures, had formerly an
influence over the government of the city which from the time of
Edward III. was paramount.

_Non-administrative Arrangements._--The Local Government Act of 1888
dealt with the metropolis for non-administrative purposes as it did
for administrative, that is to say, as a separate county. The
arrangements of quarter-sessions, justices, coroners, sheriffs, &c.,
were thus brought into line with other counties, except in so far as
the ordinary organization is modified by the existence of the central
criminal court, the metropolitan police, police courts and
magistrates, and a paid chairman of quarter-sessions. The powers of
the governing body of the City, moreover, are as peculiar in this
direction as in that of municipal administration, and the act left the
City as a county of a city practically unchanged. Thus the Lord Mayor
and aldermen possess judicial authority, and the police of London are
divided into two separate bodies, the Metropolitan and the City Police
(see POLICE).

Courts.

The chief courts for the trial of criminal cases are the Central Criminal Court and the Court of Quarter-sessions. The Central Criminal Court, taking the place of the provincial Assizes, was established by an act of 1834. There are twelve sessions annually, under the Lord Mayor, aldermen and judges. They were formerly held in the "Old Bailey" sessions-house, but a fine new building from designs of E. W. Mountford took the place of this in 1906. Quarter-sessions for the county of London are held thirty-six times annually, for the north side of the Thames at the Sessions-house in Clerkenwell (Finsbury) and for the south side at that in Newington Causeway, Southwark. For judicial purposes Westminster was merged with the county of London in 1889, and the Liberty of the Tower was abolished in 1894. The separate court of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen is held at the Guildhall. The Metropolitan police courts are fourteen in number, namely--Bow Street, Covent Garden; Clerkenwell; Great Marlborough Street (Westminster); Greenwich and Woolwich; Lambeth; Marylebone; North London, Stoke Newington Road; Southwark; South Western, Lavender Hill (Battersea); Thames, Arbour Street East (Stepney); West Ham; West London, Vernon Street (Fulham); Westminster, Vincent Square; Worship Street (Shoreditch). The police courts of the City are held at the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor or an alderman sitting as magistrate, and at the Guildhall, where the aldermen preside in rotation. The prisons within the metropolis are Brixton, Holloway, Pentonville, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubbs. In the county of London there are 12 coroners' districts, 19 petty sessional divisions (the City forming a separate one) and 13 county court districts (the City forming a separate one). The boundaries of these divisions do not in any way correspond with each other, or with the police divisions, or with the borough or parish boundaries. The registration county of London coincides with the administrative county.

_Parliamentary Representation._--The London Government Act contains a saving clause by which "nothing in or done under this act shall be construed as altering the limits of any parliamentary borough or parliamentary county." The parliamentary boroughs are thus in many cases named and bounded differently from the metropolitan boroughs. The parliamentary arrangements of each metropolitan borough are indicated in the separate articles on the boroughs. In the following list the boroughs which extend outside the administrative county of London are noted. Each division of each borough, or each borough where not divided, returns one member, save that the City of London returns two members.

(a) _North of the Thames._ (1) Bethnal Green--_Divs._: North-eastern,
South-western. (2) Chelsea (detached portion in administrative county
of Middlesex, Kensal Town). (3) Finsbury (detached portion in
Middlesex, Muswell Hill)--_Divs._: Holborn, Central, Eastern. (5)
Fulham. (6) Hackney--_Divs._: North, Central, South. (7) Hammersmith.
(8) Hampstead. (9) Islington--_Divs._: Northern, Southern, Eastern,
Western. (10) Kensington--_Divs._: Northern, Southern. (11) City of
London. (12) Marylebone--_Divs._: Eastern, Western. (13) Paddington
(extending into Middlesex)--_Divs._: Northern, Southern. (14) St
George's Hanover Square. (15) St Pancras--_Divs._: Northern, Southern,
Eastern, Western. (16) Shoreditch--_Divs._: Hoxton, Haggerston. (17)
Strand. (18) Tower Hamlets--_Divs._: Bow and Bromley, Limehouse, Mile
End, Poplar, St George, Stepney, Whitechapel. (19) Westminster.

A detached portion of the parliamentary division of Hornsey,
Middlesex, is in the metropolitan borough of Hackney. London
University returns a member.

(b) _South of the Thames._ (1) Battersea and Clapham--_Divs._:
Battersea, Clapham. (2) Camberwell (extending into Kent)--_Divs._:
Northern, Peckham, Dulwich. (3) Deptford. (4) Greenwich. (5)
Lambeth--_Divs._: Northern, Kennington, Brixton, Norwood. (6)
Lewisham. (7) Newington--_Divs._: Western, Walworth. (8)
Southwark--_Divs._: Western, Rotherhithe, Bermondsey. (9) Wandsworth.
(10) Woolwich.

Part of the Wimbledon parliamentary division of Surrey is in the
metropolitan borough of Wandsworth.

_Ecclesiastical Divisions and Denominations._--London north of the Thames is within the Church of England bishopric of London, the bishop's palace being at Fulham. In this diocese, which covers nearly the whole of Middlesex and a very small portion of Hertfordshire, are the suffragan bishoprics of Islington, Kensington and Stepney. The bishopric of Southwark was created in 1904, having been previously a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Rochester. The county contains 612 ecclesiastical parishes. Westminster is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishopric in England, and Southwark is a bishopric. Among the numerous chapels of dissenting bodies there may be mentioned the City Temple, Congregational, on Holborn Viaduct; the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Baptist, in Southwark, the creation of which was the outcome of the labours of the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon (d. 1892); and Wesley's Chapel, City Road, in the graveyard of which is the tomb of John Wesley; his house, which adjoins the chapel, being open as a memorial museum. In 1903 the Wesleyans acquired the site of the Royal Aquarium, near Westminster Abbey, for the erection of a central hall. The Great Synagogue of the Jews is in St James' Place, Aldgate. The headquarters of the Salvation Army are in Queen Victoria Street, City. There are numerous foreign churches, among which may be mentioned the French Protestant churches in Monmouth Road, Bayswater and Soho Square; the Greek church of St Sophia, Moscow Road, Bayswater; and the German Evangelical church in Montpelier Place, Brompton Road, opened in 1904. (O. J. R. H.)