52-507: 53°03′50″N 2°52′19″W / 53.064°N 2.872°W / 53.064; -2.872 Overton Rural District was formed by the Local Government Act 1894 which created numerous administrative areas around the country. The district was located in an exclave of Flintshire known as English Maelor , surrounded by Cheshire, Denbighshire and Shropshire. It consisted of eleven civil parishes: Overton Rural District
104-399: A chairman and councillors. The councillors were elected for a three-year term in a similar way to councillors in urban districts. They were elected for parishes or groupings of parishes, and were also the representatives for those areas on the board of guardians. In a few cases a parish or handful of parishes were administered by a rural district council in a neighbouring county. In this case
156-425: A chairman at its annual meeting. The parish councils were given the following powers and duties: Parish councils were generally limited to a rate of three pence in the pound, although this could be increased to sixpence in the pound with the permission of the parish meeting. Loans could not be obtained without the permission of both the parish meeting and the county council. Borrowing for certain specified purposes
208-512: A decision had been made that all those with a population of 300 or more were to have a parish council. This limit had been chosen as the Local Government Board already possessed powers to group parishes below this population for the election of guardians. There were approximately 6,000 small parishes in this category. Parish councils were to be limited in their expenditure, and were to be confined to charging rates of one penny in
260-410: A freer voice will be given to the community than it has ever had before. New depths of life will have been stirred in the most neglected portions of our community, and we shall find among the labourers of the fields, as we have found among the artisans of the towns, a resolution that the condition of our people shall, so far as laws can better it, be bettered ... The Earl of Kimberley explained to
312-520: A meeting in Reading : The Tories cannot conceal from themselves the fact that all over the land – in the towns, in the villages, in the country districts, in the urban districts - there is a resolute determination that Parliament shall put its hand in earnest to the great work of social regeneration ... parish councils may sound dull and mechanical, we know that they will go to the very root of national life, and that when we have achieved these reforms
364-563: A meeting in Walworth that the party wanted to create: ... a complete hierarchy of councils popularly elected and with full powers belonging to such bodies. The Liberals tried to amend the Agricultural Smallholdings Act 1892 as it passed through parliament, seeking to add clauses creating parish councils which would have the power to buy and sell land in order to increase the number of smallholdings. In rejecting
416-623: A member of the senate of the University of London , he became its chancellor in 1899. Lord Kimberley married Lady Florence FitzGibbon (d. 1895), daughter of Richard FitzGibbon, 3rd Earl of Clare , on 16 August 1847. They had three children: He died at 35 Lowndes Square in London (now the High Commission of Pakistan ) on 8 April 1902, aged 76, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, John. His more distant relatives include
468-400: A parish council varied from 5 to 15 members, the number being fixed by order of the county council. The entire council was elected annually on 15 April. To be eligible for election to the council, a person was required to be resident within the parish, or within three miles of it, for at least twelve months prior to the election. The entire council was elected annually. The parish council elected
520-467: A special mission to Copenhagen in the hope of finding a solution to the Schleswig-Holstein question. However, the mission was a failure. In 1864 Kimberley became Under-Secretary of State for India , but towards the end of the year was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . In that capacity, he had to grapple with the first manifestations of Fenianism , and in recognition of his services, he
572-399: Is administered is as admirable as it is possible for the ingenuity and humanity of man to devise", and he called on the government to drop the proposals. Sir Charles Dilke , from the government's own benches, was unhappy that county councils would have the power to divide or group parishes. He felt that they were susceptible to influence by local landowners whose wishes might overcome those of
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#1732802464601624-558: Is to be within one county, that the district of every District Council is to be within one county, and that the County Councils shall have the duty of readjusting the existing overlapping areas and divisions. We think the County Council far the best tribunal to undertake this duty. They understand the localities, and how the districts can best be divided. They are to have 12 months in which to discharge their duty; and if at
676-474: The Charity Commissioners could provide for the parish council to become the trustees. Annual accounts of the charity were to be laid before the parish meeting. A parish council, or one-tenth of the electors of a parish, could apply to the county council for the division of the parish into wards. This was to be done where "the area or population of the parish is so large, or different parts of
728-564: The Commons on 21 March 1893, Fowler set out the complicated system of local government that was in need of reform. England and Wales were divided into: 62 counties, 302 Municipal Boroughs, 31 Improvement Act Districts, 688 Local Government Districts, 574 Rural Sanitary Districts, 58 Port Sanitary Districts, 2,302 School Board Districts ... 1,052 Burial Board Districts, 648 Poor Law Unions, 13,775 Ecclesiastical Parishes, and nearly 15,000 Civil Parishes. The total number of Authorities which tax
780-804: The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , "As leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords he acted with undeviating dignity, and in opposition, he was a courteous antagonist and a critic of weight and experience". On 5 April 1850, he joined the Canterbury Association , formed to establish a colony (in the later Canterbury Region ) on the South Island of New Zealand. Lord Kimberley took interest in education, and after being for many years
832-714: The Hertfordshire County Council split the parishes of Bushey and Watford into Bushey Urban and Watford Urban parishes in Watford Urban District and Watford Rural and Bushey Rural parishes in the Watford Rural District . The county council could also group small parishes under a joint parish council. The act specified that the first elections to the district councils and reconstituted boards of guardians would take place on 8 November 1894, or such other date that
884-551: The President of the Local Government Board , Charles Ritchie , had some difficulty in having the legislation passed by Parliament, and dropped the district council clauses for fear that the entire bill might be lost due to opposition from the government's own backbenchers. The Liberal opposition berated the government for failing to create district councils. At the same time they put forward proposals for establishing councils at parish level. John Morley , MP for Newcastle , told
936-527: The lord presidency of the council . In Lord Rosebery's cabinet (1894–1895) he was Foreign Secretary . During this time he signed the landmark Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation . Sir Edward Grey who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary under Kimberley at the Foreign Office portrays him unfavourably as prolix and prone to irrelevant digressions in conversation although concise, definite and clear on paper. However, according to
988-661: The pound unless they had the consent of both the parish meeting and the district council. Turning to the government of towns he explained: We shall convert the Improvement Commissioners and Local Boards into Urban District Councils; we shall abolish all plural voting; we shall propose to abolish all qualifications, for we think the only qualification a man ought to possess is the confidence of his constituents; and we propose to make women capable of serving on these District Councils. He then turned to reform of rural authorities: Then as regards rural districts,
1040-476: The Act made no provision to abolish the hundreds , which had previously been the only widely used administrative unit between the parish and the county in size, the reorganisation displaced their remaining functions. Several ancient hundred names lived on in the names of the districts that superseded them. The Local Government Act 1888 ( 51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) had introduced elected county councils. The passing of
1092-469: The Act was 692. All but three of 118 additional districts were caused by the breaking up of cross-county rural sanitary districts (for example Monks Kirby Rural District was the part of Lutterworth RSD that was in Warwickshire , with the rest forming Lutterworth Rural District .) Where new rural districts were created due to boundary changes the county council were to provide names. In some areas
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#17328024646011144-472: The Commons completed its consideration of the bill on 8 January 1894. The passage of the bill through the House of Lords was completed on 12 February. The Lords made two amendments to the bill, the first raised the population for forming a parish council back to the original figure of 300, the second amendment provided that parochial charities would only transfer to the administration of a parish council with
1196-498: The English ratepayers is between 28,000 and 29,000. Not only are we exposed to this multiplicity of authority and this confusion of rating power, but the qualification, tenure, and mode of election of members of these Authorities differ in different cases. He explained that the government had chosen the civil parish as the basic unit of local government in rural areas. He estimated that there were approximately 13,000 rural parishes and
1248-681: The Guardians a popularly elected body, we do not propose to disturb the existing machinery. We take the Rural Sanitary Authority as it now exists, but elected and qualified under new conditions, and we continue that as the Rural District Council. Therefore, the Rural District Council will be the old Rural Sanitary Authority altered, and, I think, very much improved ... Then we propose to abolish all separate Highway Authorities in rural districts and to transfer
1300-660: The Local Government Board should fix. In the event, the electoral register was not complete until late November, and elections did not take place until December. Over 729,000 women were now eligible to vote in local elections in England and Wales (some of whom could already vote in local elections under the Municipal Franchise Act 1869 ). John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley KG KP PC DL (7 January 1826 – 8 April 1902), known as
1352-752: The Lord Wodehouse from 1846 to 1866, was a British Liberal politician. He held office in every Liberal administration from 1852 to 1895, notably as Secretary of State for the Colonies and as Foreign Secretary . Kimberley was born in 1826 in Wymondham , Norfolk, the eldest son of the Hon. Henry Wodehouse (1799–1834) and grandson of John Wodehouse, 2nd Baron Wodehouse . His mother was Anne Gurdon (d. 1880), daughter of Theophilus Thornhagh Gurdon. In 1846 he succeeded his grandfather as third Baron Wodehouse. He
1404-515: The act had been part of the price for Liberal Unionist support for Lord Salisbury's minority Conservative administration. An innovation in the act was the fact that all electors had a single vote, and thus county councillors were popularly elected. The members of other local bodies were elected by a system of weighted voting, with those owning more property having multiple votes. The original Local Government Bill of 1888 had included provisions for creating district as well as county councils. However
1456-406: The act were: The new district councils were based on the existing urban and rural sanitary districts . Many of the latter had lain in more than one ancient county, whereas the new rural districts were to be in a single administrative county . The act also reorganised civil parishes , so that none of them lay in more than one district and hence did not cross administrative boundaries. Although
1508-571: The administrative county, and to ensure that no parish or district extended into another county. Also parishes that crossed district boundaries were to be divided. Hundreds of orders were made by county councils, and it was not until 1898 that the process was complete. Many county councils took the opportunity to "tidy up" their boundaries with neighbouring authorities, and it was not uncommon for blocks of parishes to be exchanged. The division of parishes led to many ancient parishes being split into "urban" and "rural" portions. As an example, an order of
1560-556: The amendments, Henry Chaplin , President of the Board of Agriculture , claimed the government intended: ... on a proper and fitting occasion, when opportunity arises, to deal not only with the question of District Councils, but the question also of parochial reform. Parliament was dissolved in June 1892, and a general election called. The Liberals made the introduction of district and parish councils part of their programme. Following
1612-621: The approval of the Charity Commissioners . Both were agreed to. The act received the royal assent on 5 March 1894. In 1893 there were 688 urban Sanitary districts outside boroughs. These had various titles such as Local Government District or Local Board of Health District or Improvement Commissioners' District . Each of these variously titled entities became urban districts in 1894/5. Urban districts continued to be formed, and by 1927 there were 785. Municipal boroughs , while being classified as urban districts, had neither their titles nor constitutions altered. The governing body of
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1664-432: The area was the urban district council. All councillors were popularly elected for a three-year term. There were to be no ex officio or appointed members as had existed in some of the predecessor bodies. In order to be eligible for election, a candidate was required to be on the electoral register, and to have resided in the district for twelve months prior to the election. Women were permitted to be councillors. One-third of
1716-452: The area was too small to become a separate rural district, which was required by the act to have at least five councillors. These areas were to "be temporarily administered by the district council of an adjoining district in another county with which it was united before the appointed day" . The councillors elected for these areas were entitled to sit and act as members of the rural district council, although separate accounts were to be kept for
1768-549: The area. These arrangements were usually ended within a few years of the act's coming into force, with the areas being transferred by alteration in either county or rural district boundaries. Some persisted until the 1930s, however, when county districts were reorganised under the Local Government Act 1929 . Exceptionally, the parish of Pennal , Merionethshire, was administered by Machynlleth Rural District in Montgomeryshire until 1955. Rural district councils inherited
1820-417: The bill dealt with poor law guardians and district councils. Among its provisions were that: The third part of the bill detailed the duties of the county council in dealing with divided areas and small parishes. The county council had the power to name divided parishes and to combine areas. The fourth and fifth parts of the bill dealt with the first election of councils and transitory provisions. Speaking in
1872-523: The bill on a number of grounds. He defended the ex-officio guardians who had "proved themselves the most efficient and the most useful members of the Board ;... you will find that the most regular attendants have been the ex officios, and that they have made the best Chairmen and the best members." He believed the reform of boards of guardians was unwarranted as "the system under which the Poor Law
1924-451: The council was elected on 15 April each year. UDCs could, by a resolution passed with a two-thirds majority, change to a system of elections of the whole council every three years. The council elected a chairman at their annual meeting, who was, during their term of office, a justice of the peace for the county. There were 574 rural sanitary districts in 1893, many of them crossing county boundaries. The number of rural districts formed by
1976-484: The county boundaries were so complicated that rural districts were in more than one administrative county. For example, Gloucestershire , Warwickshire and Worcestershire had many outlying detached parishes surrounded by other counties. Accordingly, the rural districts of Shipston on Stour , Stow on the Wold , Tewkesbury and Winchcombe included parishes in two or three counties. Rural district councils consisted of
2028-710: The election the Liberals under William Ewart Gladstone formed an administration with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party . The Local Government Bill (also referred to as the Parish Councils Bill) was published by H. H. Fowler , the President of the Local Government Board, on 26 March 1893. The bill consisted of 71 clauses arranged in five parts. The first part dealt with rural parishes, and provided that: The second part of
2080-475: The end of that period they have not made this readjustment, it will devolve upon the Local Government Board to interfere and carry the matter out. The bill returned, in amended form, for a second reading in November 1893. In reintroducing the bill to the Commons, Fowler outlined the objections that had been made, and the government's response. Walter Long , the opposition spokesman on local government attacked
2132-616: The number of elected Guardians, but there is required to be one Guardian for every constituent parish. There is a property qualification and plural voting, and voting by proxy. We could not ask the House to continue the existing powers in, much less to confer new powers upon, an authority so constituted and so irresponsible ... We therefore propose to abolish, firstly, all ex officio or non-elective Guardians ... there shall be no plural voting, no proxy voting , and no voting papers, but voting by Ballot and One Man One Vote ... Having made
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2184-493: The parishioners. The bill then entered the committee stage. Arguments over the population at which parish councils should be established continued to be made, with amendments proposing limits of 100, 200, 500, 600 and 1,000. The figure finally reverted to the government figure of 200. Major Leonard Darwin , Liberal Unionist MP for Lichfield unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to create parish councils in urban districts containing more than one parish. After 34 days of debate,
2236-539: The population so situated, as to make a single parish meeting for the election of councillors impracticable or inconvenient, or that it is desirable for any reason that certain parts of the parish should be separately represented on the council" . Separate elections of councillors for each ward would then be held. The responsibility for defining the areas of the districts was given to the county councils established in 1888 . County councils were supposed to have regard to areas of existing sanitary districts and parishes in
2288-560: The powers of both the rural sanitary authority they replaced and any highway board in their area. In all rural parishes with a population of 300 or more, a parish council had to be elected. In parishes with more than 100 but less than 300 population, the parish meeting could request the county council to make an order to establish a parish council. Urban parishes (those within an urban district) were not given separate parish councils, but were directly administered by their urban district council or municipal borough council. The membership of
2340-400: The union is the administrative area with which we have to deal. Except in 25 cases, in which, if I may use the expression, the union consists of a single parish, the union is an aggregation of parishes. There are 648 unions altogether. There are 137 in two counties and 32 in three counties. The Guardians by whom the union is administered are elected or ex officio. The Local Government Board fixes
2392-520: The whole powers of the Highway Board or the highway parish to the Rural District Council. Finally he described how the boundaries of the districts and parishes were to be arrived at: At present we have rural sanitary districts, partly within and partly without the county, and we have parishes partly within and partly without rural sanitary districts. We have 174 rural sanitary districts and some 800 parishes so situate. We propose that every parish
2444-601: Was created Earl of Kimberley in 1866. In July 1866 he vacated his office with the fall of Lord Russell's ministry, but in 1868 he became Lord Privy Seal in Gladstone's cabinet, and in July 1870 was transferred from that post to be Secretary of State for the Colonies . It was the moment of the great diamond discoveries in southern Africa, and the town of Kimberley in the Cape Colony was named after him. Lord Kimberley
2496-728: Was credited with the change in British policy towards the independent Malay states that led to the signing of the Pangkor Treaty of 1874 , after which British political agents known as Residents were placed in the Malay states as advisors to the rulers. After an interval in opposition from 1874 to 1880, Lord Kimberley returned to the Colonial Office in Gladstone's next ministry. He was in that office when responsible government
2548-472: Was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford , where he took a first-class degree in classics in 1847. He was by inheritance a Liberal in politics, and in 1852–1856 and 1859–1861 he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Aberdeen's and Lord Palmerston's ministries. In the interval (1856–1858) he had been envoy-extraordinary to Russia; and in 1863 he was sent on
2600-592: Was granted to Cape Colony , British Columbia was added to the Dominion of Canada and during the First Boer War . At the end of 1882 he exchanged this office first for that of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and then for the secretaryship of state for India , a post he retained during the remainder of Gladstone's tenure of power (1882–1885, 1886, 1892–1894), though in 1892–1894 he combined with it that of
2652-689: Was renamed Maelor Rural District in 1953. Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London . The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888 ( 51 & 52 Vict. c. 41). The 1894 legislation introduced elected councils at district and parish level. The principal effects of
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#17328024646012704-403: Was subject to the approval of the Local Government Board. No right of way could be extinguished or diverted without the permission of both the parish and rural district council. Parish councils could take over the maintenance of public footpaths within their parish, other than those along the edge of highways. Where a charitable trust (other than an ecclesiastical charity) existed in a parish,
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