Boards of improvement commissioners were ''ad hoc'' urban

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

boards created during the 18th and 19th centuries in the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Grea ...

and its predecessors the

Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...

and the Kingdom of Ireland. Around 300 boards were created, each by a

private Act of Parliament Proposed bills are often categorized into public bills and private bills. A public bill is a proposed law which would apply to everyone within its jurisdiction. This is unlike a private bill which is a proposal for a law affecting only a single p ...

, typically termed an Improvement Act.Ed. Juliet Gardiner, ''The Penguin Dictionary of English History'' The powers of the boards varied according to the acts which created them. They often included

street paving A road surface (British English), or pavement (American English), is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, hoggin, cobble ...

, cleansing,

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...

, providing

watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 before being collected in a single-vo ...

or dealing with various

public nuisance In English criminal law, public nuisance was a common law offence in which the injury, loss, or damage is suffered by the public, in general, rather than an individual, in particular. In Australia In ''Kent v Johnson'' the Supreme Court of the ...

s. Those with restricted powers might be called lighting commissioners, paving commissioners, police commissioners, etc. Older urban government forms included the

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

s of

ancient borough The ancient boroughs were a historic unit of lower-tier local government in England and Wales. The ancient boroughs covered only important towns and were established by charters granted at different times by the monarchy. Their history is large ...

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially ...

of parishes, and in some cases the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

. These were ill-equipped for the larger populations of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

: the most powerful in theory, the corporations, were also the most corrupt; and many new industrial towns lacked borough status. While Binfield states that the first improvement commission in Great Britain was the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Police Commission, established in 1765, followed by the

Birmingham Street Commissioners The Birmingham Street Commissioners were a local government body, created in Birmingham, England in 1769, with powers to manage matters such as streets, markets, and policing. Subsequent Improvement Acts of 1773, 1801, and 1812 gave increased power ...

in 1769,Clyde Binfield et al., ''The History of the City of Sheffield 1843 - 1993: Volume I: Politics'' the Webbs list the

Commissioners of Scotland Yard The Commissioners of Scotland Yard was the informal name for the Commissioners for the Streets and Wayes, a body of improvement commissioners established in 1662 to manage and regulate various areas relating to streets and traffic in the cities o ...

, formed in 1662 for sewerage and street-cleaning in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

and City of Westminster, and then

New Sarum Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

in 1736 and

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

in 1748, as well as various

harbour commissioner In Canada and the United States, a port authority (less commonly a port district) is a governmental or quasi-governmental public authority_for_a_special-purpose_district.html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type of Nonprofit organization">nonprof ...

s from 1698. Jones and Falkus give the number of such bodies created: Improvement Acts empowered the commissioners to fund their work by levying rates. Some acts specified named individuals to act as commissioners, who replenished their number by

co-option Co-option (also co-optation, sometimes spelt coöption or coöptation) has two common meanings. It may refer to the process of adding members to an elite group at the discretion of members of the body, usually to manage opposition and so maintai ...

. Other commissions held elections at which all ratepayers could vote, or took all those paying above a certain rate as automatic members. During the mid-19th century, some commissions came under Chartist control, for example, the Manchester Police and Gas Commissions, the

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

Improvement Commission, the Bradford Highway Commission and the

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

Highway Commission. Improvement commissioners were gradually superseded by reformed

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

s (from 1835) and boards of health (from 1848), which absorbed commissioners' powers by promoting private acts. Harbour commissioners remained separate in many cases, and they or their successor body are the

competent harbour authority Competent harbour authorities (CHA) in the United Kingdom are those harbour authorities that have been given statutory powers relating to the provision of pilotage in their waters. The description was created by the Pilotage Act 1987, at which poi ...

in many UK ports. In Ireland the first and best known improvement commission was the Dublin

Wide Streets Commission The Wide Streets Commission (officially the Commissioners for making Wide and Convenient Ways, Streets and Passages) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1758, at the request of Dublin Corporation, as a body to govern standards on the layou ...

in 1757, which covered the area of

Dublin Corporation Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660-1661, even more sign ...

and the adjoining Liberties. Newtown Pery was governed by improvement commissioners from 1807 until 1853, when it was absorbed into

Limerick city Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...

. The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 abolished most corporations, but the ad hoc improvement commissioners were superseded by standardised

town commissioners Town commissioners were elected local government bodies that existed in urban areas in Ireland from the 19th century until 2002. Larger towns with commissioners were converted to urban districts by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, with ...

List

Pre-1848

Post-1848

Sources

References

See also