| County borough | |
|---|---|
 Map of county boroughs in 1971 (named in boldface capitals), alongside administrative counties, municipal boroughs, urban districts, rural districts | |
| Category | Borough |
| Location | England and Wales andIreland |
| Found in | Counties |
| Created by | Local Government Act 1888 Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 |
| Created | |
| Abolished by | |
| Abolished |
|
| Number | 11 (as of 2008) |
| Possible types |
|
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to aborough or acity independent ofcounty council control, similar to theunitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent term used in Scotland was acounty of city. They were abolished by theLocal Government Act 1972 inEngland and Wales, but continue in use forlieutenancy andshrievalty inNorthern Ireland. In theRepublic of Ireland they remain in existence but have been renamedcities under the provisions of theLocal Government Act 2001.[1] TheLocal Government (Wales) Act 1994 re-introduced the term for certain "principal areas" in Wales. Scotland did not have county boroughs but instead hadcounties of cities. These were abolished on 16 May 1975. All four Scottish cities of the time—Aberdeen,Dundee,Edinburgh, andGlasgow—were included in this category. There was an additional category oflarge burgh in the Scottish system (similar to amunicipal borough in England and Wales), which were responsible for all services apart from police, education and fire.
Whencounty councils were first created in 1889, it was decided that to let them have authority over large towns or cities would be impractical, and so any large incorporated place would have the right to be a county borough, and thus independent from theadministrative county it would otherwise come under. Some cities and towns were already independentcounties corporate, and most were to become county boroughs. Originally ten county boroughs were proposed;Bristol,Hull,Newcastle upon Tyne andNottingham, which were already counties, andBirmingham,Bradford,Leeds,Liverpool,Manchester, andSheffield, which were not. TheLocal Government Act 1888 as eventually passed required a population of over 50,000 except in the case of existing counties corporate.[2] This resulted in 61 county boroughs in England and two in Wales (Cardiff andSwansea). Several exceptions were allowed, mainly for historic towns, includingBath andDudley, which would still remain below the 50,000 limit by the time of the 1901 census. Some of the smaller counties corporate—Berwick upon Tweed,Lichfield,Poole,Carmarthen andHaverfordwest—did not become county boroughs, althoughCanterbury, with a population under 25,000, did.
The county councils and county borough councils came into operation on 1 April 1889. Just seven months later, on 9 November 1889, the city ofOxford was the first borough which had not been made a county borough by the 1888 Act to be elevated to county borough status.[3] Various other new county boroughs were constituted in the following decades, generally as more boroughs reached the 50,000 minimum and then promoted Acts to constitute them county boroughs. The granting of county borough status was the subject of much disagreement between the largemunicipal boroughs and the county councils. The population limit provided county councils with a disincentive to allow mergers or boundary amendments to districts that would create authorities with large populations, as this would allow them to seek county borough status and remove the tax base from the administrative county.
County boroughs to be constituted in this era were a mixed bag, including some towns that would continue to expand such asBournemouth andSouthend-on-Sea. Other towns such asBurton upon Trent andDewsbury were not to increase in population much past 50,000. 1913 saw the attempts ofLuton andCambridge to gain county borough status defeated in theHouse of Commons, despite the approval of theLocal Government Board – the removal of Cambridge from Cambridgeshire would have reduced the income of Cambridgeshire County Council by over half.
Upon recommendation of a commission chaired by theEarl of Onslow, the population threshold was raised to 75,000 in 1926, by theLocal Government (County Boroughs and Adjustments) Act 1926, which also made it much harder to expand boundaries. The threshold was raised to 100,000 by theLocal Government Act 1958.
The viability of the county borough ofMerthyr Tydfil came into question in the 1930s. Due toa decline in the heavy industries of the town, by 1932 more than half the male population was unemployed, resulting in very high municipal rates in order to make public assistance payments. At the same time the population of the borough was lower than when it had been created in 1908.[4] Aroyal commission was appointed in May 1935 to "investigate whether the existing status of Merthyr Tydfil as a county borough should be continued, and if not, what other arrangements should be made".[5] The commission reported the following November, and recommended that Merthyr should revert to the status of a non-county borough, and that public assistance should be taken over by central government. In the event county borough status was retained by the town, with the chairman of the Welsh Board of Health appointed as administrative adviser in 1936.[6]
After theSecond World War the creation of new county boroughs inEngland and Wales was effectively suspended, pending a local government review. A governmentwhite paper published in 1945 stated that "it is expected that there will be a number of Bills for extending or creating county boroughs" and proposed the creation of a boundary commission to bring coordination to local government reform. The policy in the paper also ruled out the creation of new county boroughs inMiddlesex "owing to its special problems".[7] TheLocal Government Boundary Commission was appointed on 26 October 1945, under the chairmanship ofSir Malcolm Trustram Eve,[8] delivering its report in 1947.[9] The commission recommended that towns with a population of 200,000 or more should become one-tier "new counties", with "new county boroughs" having a population of 60,000–200,000 being "most-purpose authorities", with the county council of the administrative county providing certain limited services. The report envisaged the creation of 47 two-tiered "new counties", 21 one-tiered "new counties" and 63 "new county boroughs". The recommendations of the commission extended to a review of the division of functions between different tiers of local government, and thus fell outside its terms of reference, and its report was not acted upon.
The next attempt at reform was by the Local Government Act 1958, which established theLocal Government Commission for England and theLocal Government Commission for Wales to carry out reviews of existing local government structures and recommend reforms. Although the Commissions did not complete their work before being dissolved, a handful of new county boroughs were constituted between 1964 and 1968.Luton,Torbay, andSolihull gained county borough status. Additionally, theTeesside was formed from a merger of the existing county borough ofMiddlesbrough, and themunicipal boroughs ofStockton-on-Tees,Redcar andThornaby;Warley was formed from the county borough ofSmethwick and the non-county boroughs ofOldbury andRowley Regis; andWest Hartlepool was merged withHartlepool. Following these changes, there was a total of 79 county boroughs in England. The Commission also recommended the downgrading ofBarnsley to be a non-county borough, but this was not carried out.
The county boroughs ofEast Ham,West Ham andCroydon were abolished in 1965 with the creation ofGreater London and went on to form parts ofLondon boroughs. The remaining county boroughs were abolished in 1974 under theLocal Government Act 1972, and replaced withnon-metropolitan districts andmetropolitan districts, all beneathcounty councils in a two-tier structure. In Greater London and the metropolitan counties the lower tier districts retained a wider range of powers than in the non-metropolitan counties.
This situation did not persist long. In 1986 the metropolitan county councils and theGreater London Council were abolished, returning the metropolitan boroughs to a status equivalent to the former county boroughs, but sharing some powers (police and transport for example). In the 1990s, many of the non-metropolitan former county boroughs were reformed again asunitary authorities – essentially the same as a county borough. As a result, by 2015, most former county boroughs were either metropolitan boroughs or unitary authorities with a status similar to the old county boroughs. In England, most of those former county boroughs that did not gain unitary authority status—Barrow-in-Furness,Burnley,Canterbury,Carlisle,Chester,Eastbourne,Gloucester,Great Yarmouth,Hastings,Ipswich,Lincoln,Northampton,Norwich,Oxford,Preston, andWorcester—have given their names to non-unitarylocal government districts (in some cases coterminous with the old county borough, in other cases much larger).Burton upon Trent became an unparished area in theEast Staffordshire borough, and has now been divided into several parishes.
In Wales, severalprincipal areas are county boroughs:[10]
For all practical purposes, county boroughs are exactly the same as the otherprincipal areas of Wales called "counties" (including "cities and counties") as all these areas are run byunitary authorities (i.e. have the functions of bothboroughs and counties). Although unitary authorities are functionally equivalent to county boroughs, only in Wales is the title given official recognition by Act of Parliament.[10]
The map depicts the county boroughs in England immediately prior to their abolition in 1974. County boroughs in Wales and Northern Ireland are not shown.
This table shows those county boroughs that existed in England and Wales between the Local Government Acts of 1888 (that created them) and 1972 (that abolished them from 1974).
Only four districts with more than one county borough were formed:Wirral,Sandwell,Sefton andKirklees. Elsewhere, county boroughs usually formed the core or all of a district named after the county borough – with the exceptions of Halifax, whose metropolitan district was namedCalderdale, Burton upon Trent, which became part of the East Staffordshire district, and Teesside, which was split up between three non-metropolitan districts.
County boroughs to be abolished prior to 1974 were:
| County borough | County | Created | Abolished | Successor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Croydon | Surrey | 1889 | 1965 | Greater London:London Borough of Croydon |
| Devonport | Devon | 1889 | 1914 | County Borough of Plymouth |
| East Ham | Essex | 1915 | 1965 | Greater London:London Borough of Newham |
| Hanley | Staffordshire | 1889 | 1910 | County Borough of Stoke on Trent |
| Middlesbrough | Yorkshire, North Riding | 1889 | 1968 | County Borough of Teesside |
| Smethwick | Staffordshire | 1907 | 1966 | County Borough of Warley |
| West Ham | Essex | 1889 | 1965 | Greater London:London Borough of Newham |
| West Hartlepool | Durham | 1902 | 1967 | County Borough of Hartlepool |
The county boroughs ofBelfast andDerry were created by theLocal Government (Ireland) Act 1898.
InNorthern Ireland, local government has not used county boroughs since 1973, but they remain in use forlieutenancy.
For administrative purposes the two county boroughs in Northern Ireland were replaced with two larger districts (Belfast andLondonderry).
TheLocal Government (Ireland) Act 1898 created county boroughs in Ireland. Under the Act, four former counties corporate (Cork,Dublin,Limerick andWaterford) became county boroughs.
Galway became a county borough in 1986.
In theRepublic of Ireland, the relevant legislation remained in force (although amended), and county boroughs on the original model existed until 2001. Under theLocal Government Act 2001 (which replaced most existing local government legislation in Ireland), the term "County Borough" was abolished and replaced with "City" (and hence, "Corporation" with "City Council"). HoweverKilkenny, while a traditional city, was never a county borough. Under theLocal Government Reform Act 2014, the borough of Kilkenny was abolished, but themunicipal district containing the administrative area of the former borough of Kilkenny would be known as the Municipal District of Kilkenny City.