The County of London was a county of

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 ...

from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was ...

. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the

Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

. The Act created an administrative County of London, which included within its territory 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 ...

. However, the City of London and the County of London formed separate ceremonial counties for " non-administrative" purposes.Robson 1939, pp. 80–92. The local authority for the county was the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kn ...

(LCC), which initially performed only a limited range of functions, but gained further powers during its 76-year existence. The LCC provided very few services within the City of London, where the ancient

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 ...

monopolised local governance. In 1900, the lower-tier civil parishes and district boards were replaced with 28 new metropolitan boroughs. The territory of the county was in 1961. During its existence, there was a long-term decline in population as more residents moved into the outer suburbs; there were periodic reviews of the local government structures in the greater London area and several failed attempts to expand the boundaries of the county. In 1965, the London Government Act 1963 replaced the county with the much larger

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person or object in a particular place or area. Greatness can also be attributed to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than al ...

administrative area.

Geography

The county occupied an area of just under and lay within the London Basin.Natural England �
London Basin Natural Area
Retrieved on 22 July 2009. It was divided into two parts (north and south) by the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

, which was the most significant geographic feature. It was bordered by the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of ...

with

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

to the north-east,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

to the south-east,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

the south-west and

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

to the north. The highest point was

Hampstead Heath Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is an ancient heath in London, spanning . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band ...

in the north of the county at , which is one of the highest points in London. In 1900 a number of boundary anomalies were abolished. These included the loss of the Alexandra Park exclave to Middlesex, gaining

South Hornsey South Hornsey was a local government district in Middlesex, England from 1865 to 1900. The district was formed in 1865 when the Local Government Act 1858 was adopted in the southern part of the parish of Hornsey. South Hornsey Local Board was ...

in return, and the transfer of

Penge Penge () is a suburb of South East London, England, now in the London Borough of Bromley, west of Bromley, north east of Croydon and south east of Charing Cross. History Penge was once a small hamlet, which was recorded under the name Penc ...

to Kent.

History

Creation of the county

The local government arrangements in London had last been reformed in 1855. This reform created an indirectly elected

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...

which initially provided basic infrastructure services for the metropolitan area.Robson 1939, pp. 54–61. Over time the board gained more functions and became the de facto local authority and provider of new services for the London area. The board operated in those parts of the counties of

, Surrey and

that had been designated by the General Register Office as "the Metropolis" for the purposes of the Bills of Mortality. This area had been administered separately from the City of London, which came under the control of the

Corporation of London The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Ki ...

. There had been several attempts during the 19th century to reform London government, either by expanding the City of London to cover the whole of the metropolitan area; by creating a new county of London; or by creating ten municipal corporations matching the parliamentary boroughs of the metropolis. These had all been defeated in Parliament, in part because of the agency power of the City Corporation.Robson 1939, pp. 71–79. Ultimately, the

and the introduction of county councils in England provided the mechanism for creating a territory and authority encompassing the expanded London area. For expediency, the area of the metropolitan board was chosen for the new county, and no attempt was made to select new boundaries. This area had been out of line with the expansion of London even in 1855. For example, it anomalously omitted built-up and expanding areas such as

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancient ...

, but included some sparsely populated areas on the metropolitan fringe. The City of London and the County of London each formed counties for " non-administrative" purposes, with a separate

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibilit ...

and High Sheriff for the county of London. However, the administrative county, which corresponded to the area of control of the county council, also included the City of London. In practice, the county council had very little authority over the ancient City, with some powers over drainage, roads, fire brigade, embankment of the river and flood prevention. In common with the rest of the country, the 1888 Act provided no reform of lower-tier authorities and the county was, initially at least, administered locally by a series of parish vestries and district boards.

County council

The local authority for the county was the

(LCC). Initially, the LCC provided the services it had inherited from the Metropolitan Board of Works. However, it eventually absorbed functions from ad-hoc agencies such the

London School Board The School Board for London, commonly known as the London School Board (LSB), was an institution of local government and the first directly elected body covering the whole of London. The Elementary Education Act 1870 was the first to provide for ...

and Metropolitan Asylums Board. The council was initially based in Spring Gardens, but moved to a purpose-built County Hall in the 1930s. The housing policy of the council included provision of large housing estates outside the boundaries of the county, such as that at

Becontree Becontree or Both pronunciations are given as Received Pronunciation in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, but the form is prioritised (). The dialectologist Peter Wright wrote in 1981 that is the traditional pronunciation in the cockney ...

.Robson 1939, pp. 168–169.

Local government

In 1900, eleven years after its foundation, the London Government Act divided the County of London into 28

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distric ...

s. These replaced the ancient parish vestries and district boards as the second tier of local government. County of London boroughs numbered in the information box on the right side: † Not a metropolitan borough.

Decline in population

Population fell after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and as recorded at each census until its 1965 demise. In 1901, the population was 4.5 million and by 1961 it had fallen to 3.2 million. Following the 1931 census, more of the population of "Greater London" (defined at the time as the

Metropolitan Police District The Metropolitan Police District (MPD) is the police area which is policed by the Metropolitan Police Service in London. It currently consists of the Greater London region, excluding the City of London. The Metropolitan Police District was creat ...

and City of London) lived outside the county than in it. The following table illustrates the approximate population according to the census at various intervals: †The City of London and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Finsbury, Holborn, St Marylebone, St Pancras, Shoreditch, Southwark, Stepney and Westminster. ‡The Metropolitan Boroughs of Battersea, Chelsea, Islington, Kensington, Lambeth and Paddington. §The Metropolitan Boroughs of Camberwell, Deptford, Fulham, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Lewisham, Poplar, Stoke Newington, Wandsworth and Woolwich. #Defined as the area of the Metropolitan Police district outside the County of London.

Abolition

The county of London was abolished in 1965 and was replaced by the fivefold-sized

, which took in nearly all of

, along with areas in

, Kent,

and

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

. Middlesex and Surrey had already been reduced in 1889 on the county's creation.Redcliffe-Maud & Wood, B., ''English Local Government Reformed'', (1974) The area "that had been" has since been known statutorily as

and an

Inner London Education Authority The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corp ...

operated in the area until 1990. The 28 metropolitan boroughs were merged to form 12 new Inner

London borough The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at ...

References

Works cited

External links

County of London boundary map
{{DEFAULTSORT:London Greater London predecessors Counties of England established in 1889 Counties of England disestablished in 1965 History of local government in London (1889–1965) Administrative counties abolished in 1965