Boards of improvement commissioners were ad hoc urban local government boards created during the 18th and 19th centuries in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its predecessors the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland . Around 300 boards were created, each by a private Act of Parliament , typically termed an Improvement Act . The powers of the boards varied according to the acts which created them. They often included street paving , cleansing , lighting , providing watchmen or dealing with various public nuisances . Those with restricted powers might be called lighting commissioners , paving commissioners , police commissioners , etc.
17-666: Merton Urban District (1907–1913) and Merton and Morden Urban District (1913–1965) was an urban district in Surrey , England. It was formed in 1907 from the parish of Merton and was expanded in 1913 to take in Morden. The district was abolished in 1965 and its former area now forms part of the London Borough of Merton in Greater London . The district was created in 1907 to cover the ancient parish of Merton . Since 1894
34-656: A county council . In England and Wales , urban districts and rural districts were created in 1894 by the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) as subdivisions of administrative counties . A similar model of urban and rural districts was also established in Ireland in 1899, which continued separately in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after 1921. They replaced
51-967: A certain rate as automatic members. During the mid-19th century, some commissions came under Chartist control, for example, the Manchester Police and Gas Commissions, the Leeds Improvement Commission, the Bradford Highway Commission and the Sheffield Highway Commission. Improvement commissioners were gradually superseded by reformed municipal boroughs (from 1835) and boards of health (from 1848), which absorbed commissioners' powers by promoting private acts. From 1872 England and Wales were divided into urban and rural sanitary districts , with improvement commissioners districts (also termed improvement act districts) becoming
68-467: A result of subsequent legislation, all urban and rural areas in Wales are today covered by 870 communities as sub-entities of 22 unitary authorities (or principal areas ). Improvement commissioners Older urban government forms included the corporations of ancient boroughs , vestries of parishes , and in some cases the lord of the manor . These were ill-equipped for the larger populations of
85-705: A slightly higher status and the right to appoint a mayor . Urban districts in the outer London area were absorbed into London Boroughs in 1965 as a consequence of the London Government Act 1963 . All remaining urban districts in England and Wales were abolished in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 , and replaced with a uniform system of larger districts – see Districts of England and Districts of Wales – which often covered both urban and rural areas. Many parish councils in England were created for towns previously covered by urban districts and, as
102-418: A type of urban sanitary district. Those improvement commissioners still acting as urban sanitary authorities by 1894 had their districts converted into urban districts , governed instead by an elected council. Harbour commissioners remained separate in many cases, and they or their successor body are the competent harbour authority in many UK ports. In Ireland the first and best known improvement commission
119-401: Is our Freedom". 51°24′N 0°12′W / 51.400°N 0.200°W / 51.400; -0.200 Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) In England and Wales , an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council ( UDC ), which shared local government responsibilities with
136-560: The City of London and City of Westminster , and then New Sarum in 1736 and Liverpool in 1748, as well as various harbour commissioners from 1698. Jones and Falkus give the number of such bodies created: Improvement Acts empowered the commissioners to fund their work by levying rates . Some acts specified named individuals to act as commissioners, who replenished their number by co-option . Other commissions held elections at which all ratepayers could vote, or took all those paying above
153-878: The Industrial Revolution : the most powerful in theory, the corporations, were also the most corrupt; and many new industrial towns lacked borough status . While Binfield states that the first improvement commission in Great Britain was the Manchester Police Commission, established in 1765, followed by the Birmingham Street Commissioners in 1769, the Webbs list the Commissioners of Scotland Yard , formed in 1662 for sewerage and street-cleaning in
170-505: The Local Government Act 1929 saw a net decrease of 159 between 1932 and 1938. In many instances smaller urban districts were merged with their surrounding rural districts, with the result that new districts emerged covering rural as well as urban parishes. At the same time, a number of larger urban districts became municipal boroughs (as already created, in 1835 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 ): these had
187-569: The Municipal Borough of Wimbledon and the Municipal Borough of Mitcham to form the London Borough of Merton of Greater London . The population is separately recorded for each parish until 1951. The population peak was in 1951. In 1943, the council was granted a civic coat of arms incorporating Lions from the Garth Family arms and the fret from the arms of Merton Abbey . The motto, "In Libertate Vis" , means "Our Strength
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#1732780915535204-437: The 1894 Act came into force on 31 December 1894 there had been 753 urban districts, of which 692 had previously been local government districts , 30 had been improvement commissioners districts and 31 were places newly given urban powers in 1894. The number of urban districts initially increased after 1894 as more places sought urban powers, but implementation of the recommendations of a series of county reviews as established by
221-649: The earlier system of urban and rural sanitary districts (based on poor law unions ) whose functions were taken over by the district councils. The district councils also had wider powers over local matters such as parks, cemeteries and local planning. An urban district usually contained a single parish , while a rural district might contain many. Urban districts were considered to have more problems with public health than rural areas, and so urban district councils had more funding and greater powers than comparable rural districts. Urban districts normally covered smaller towns, usually with populations of fewer than 30,000. When
238-433: The parish had been part of Croydon Rural District and was locally governed by a parish council , that was created by the Local Government Act 1894 . The area of the rural district was within the expanding area of London's southern suburbs and as the population increased it became necessary to reform the local government structures. Merton was the first parish to be removed from the rural district in 1907. An urban district
255-446: The terms of Acts of Parliament of 1828 and later. Note for table: 'ICD' stands for improvement commissioners district. Improvement commissioners district County Created Act of Parliament Improvement commissioners district County Created Act of Parliament By 1894 many earlier bodies of improvement commissioners had been replaced by local boards or borough corporations. There were thirty towns across England and Wales where
272-441: Was formed covering the same area as the parish. In 1913 the parish of Morden was also removed from the rural district and became part of the urban district, which was renamed to Merton and Morden. The separate parishes continued with nominal existence. The boundaries of the district were subject to a minor revision in 1933. The urban district was abolished in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 and its area merged with those of
289-583: Was the Dublin Wide Streets Commission in 1757, which covered the area of Dublin Corporation and the adjoining Liberties . Newtown Pery was governed by improvement commissioners from 1807 until 1853, when it was absorbed into Limerick city . The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 abolished most corporations, but the ad hoc improvement commissioners were superseded by standardised town commissioners appointed under
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