The Metropolitan Borough of Holborn was a metropolitan borough in the

County of London The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...

between 1900 and 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and the

Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead Hampstead was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Boa ...

to form the London Borough of Camden.

Formation and boundaries

The borough was formed from seven Civil parishes in England, civil parishes and Extra-parochial area, extra-parochial places in 1900: Furnival's Inn (part), Gray's Inn, Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents and Ely Place, Liberty of Saffron Hill, Lincoln's Inn, St Andrew Holborn Above the Bars with St George the Martyr, St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury and Staple Inn. In 1930 these seven were combined into a single civil parish called Holborn, which was conterminous with the metropolitan borough. Previous to the borough's formation it had been administered by two separate local bodies: Holborn District (Metropolis), Holborn District Board of Works and St Giles District (Metropolis), St Giles District Board of Works. The Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery had not been under the control of any local authority prior to 1900.

Coat of arms

St Giles, St George and St Andrew were depicted on the borough seal. The several constituent parishes were illustrated in the Coat of arms, arms granted to Holborn in 1906, while the supporters, the Lion and the Griffin are from the arms of Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn (Inns of Court). Charges from these arms were used, together with charges from the coats of arms of Hampstead and of St. Pancras, when the new coat of arms of the London Borough of Camden was designed in 1965.

Visible legacy

Several of the street name signs in the British Museum/Senate House (University of London), Senate House area still bear the "Borough of Holborn" area designation. Holborn Town Hall, built in 1894, still exists, on High Holborn, and still has the coat of arms in the façade.

Population and area

Holborn was the smallest of the twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs of the

, with an area of between 405 and . Therefore, it was even smaller than the City of London. It also had the smallest population of any of the boroughs throughout its existence. The populations recorded in National Censuses were: Constituent parishes 1801–1899 Metropolitan Borough 1900-1961

Politics

The borough was divided into nine Ward (electoral subdivision), wards for elections: Central St Giles, Lincoln's Inn, North Bloomsbury, North St Andrew, North St Giles, Saffron Hill, South Bloomsbury, South East St Andrew and St George the Martyr.Ordnance Survey 'County Series 3rd Edition' Map of London (1912-14) at 1:2500 scale. Accessed at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/

Borough council

Parliament constituency

For elections to Parliament of the United Kingdom, Parliament, the borough was represented by one constituency: *Holborn (UK Parliament constituency), Holborn In 1950 the borough's representation was reduced to half a seat, when it was merged with part of Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, St Pancras: *Holborn and St Pancras South (UK Parliament constituency), Holborn and St Pancras South

Gallery

Image:Holborn seal.png, Borough seal Image:Holborn Town Hall 1.jpg, Town Hall frontage