Small burghs were units of

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-loca ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

created by the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo 5 c. 25) reorganised local government in Scotland from 1930, introducing joint county councils, large and small burghs and district councils. The Act also abolished the Scottish poor law syst ...

in 1930. The Act reclassified existing burghs into two classes,

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (or ...

and small burghs. While large burghs became largely independent of the

county council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...

s of the

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in which they lay, small burghs lost many of their powers to the county authority. Small burghs were responsible for such matters as housing, lighting and street cleaning and drainage. Police forces maintained by small burghs were merged with the county force. Small burghs were abolished in 1975 by the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c. 65) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered local government in Scotland on 16 May 1975. The Act followed and largely implemented the report of the Royal Commission on Local Gove ...

, with the administration of their areas passing to new district councils within the

regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

, or to islands area councils established under the Act. In many cases

community council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. In ...

s were established to represent the views of the townspeople. For a complete list of small burghs see

List of local government areas in Scotland 1930 - 1975 A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Small Burgh Local government in Scotland Defunct types of subdivision in the United Kingdom