Gloucester was, from 1894 to 1974, a rural district in the

administrative county An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although mos ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The district did not include the City of Gloucester, which was a separate

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent te ...

. In 1935, Gloucester RD was more than doubled in size.

Formation

The Rural District was created by the

Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level un ...

as successor to Gloucester Rural Sanitary District. It was governed by a directly elected Rural District Council (RDC), which replaced the Rural Sanitary Authority that had comprised the poor law

guardians Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Uni ...

for the area.

Boundary Changes

Under the

Local Government Act 1929 The Local Government Act 1929 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made changes to the Poor Law and local government in England and Wales. The Act abolished the system of poor law unions in England and Wales and their board ...

County Councils were given the duty of reviewing all urban and rural districts within their area. In Gloucestershire, there were a number of very small districts, and under the ''County of Gloucester Review Order 1935'', Gloucester RD was enlarged by the transfer of the whole or parts of five abolished districts. Between 1951 and 1967, a number of suburban areas adjacent to Gloucester were removed from the Rural District, when the city boundary was expanded.

Parishes

The district comprised the following

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

es:

Abolition

The rural district was abolished on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Its territory was split between three new

non-metropolitan district Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially "shire districts", are a type of Districts of England, local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties (colloquially ''shi ...

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Ri ...

(17 parishes), Stroud (16 parishes) and

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to ...

(Newnham and Westbury-on-Severn parishes).

References

{{Reflist Districts of England created by the Local Government Act 1894 Districts of England abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 History of Gloucestershire Rural districts of England