A small burgh was a unit of

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

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 s ...

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 (o ...

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. Australia In the Australian state of New South Wales, county councils are special purpose ...

s of the

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

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 (UK), act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered local government of Scotland, local government in Scotland on 16 May 1975. The act followed and largely impleme ...

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

regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

, 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. ...

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.

References

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