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IV. Finance and Politics in Urban Local Government in England, 1835–19001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. P. Hennock
E. P. Hennock
Affiliation:
University of Keele
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Extract

One of the chief features of the history of nineteenth-century England was undoubtedly the increase in the size of cities, and in the proportion of the total population who lived under urban conditions. Since this process turned out to be a long-term trend, the urban communities, especially the larger ones, were always historically more important than the statistics of urban to rural population in any one decade would have suggested.2 They were the growing points of the new society, and decisions taken there were to be of cumulative significance far beyond the borough boundary. The problems of the towns in any one generation became increasingly the problems of the nation in the next. For instance, it was assumed in 1848 that the administrative measures under the Public Health Act of that year were applicable to urban areas only. By 1872 it had been realized that they would have to be extended to the country as a whole.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 1963 , pp. 212 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

2 Percentage of the Population of England and Wales living in Towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants

Compiled from material in Johnson's England, ed. A. S. Turberville (Oxford, 1933), 1, 202–3; A. F. Weber, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1899), 47.

3 George, M. D., London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925), 25.Google Scholar

4 J. D. Chambers, ‘Population Change in a Provincial Town: Nottingham 1700–1800’, Studies in the Industrial Revolution, ed. Pressnell, L. S. (1960), 110, 122.Google Scholar

5 E. Heckscher, 'swedish Population Trends before the Industrial Revolution’, Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. 11 (1949—50), 276—7. For similar figures for other towns both English and Continental and an excellent discussion of the problem see Mols, R., Introduction à la Démo-graphie historique des Villes d’Europe du XIVe au XVIIIe stécle (Louvain, 1954-6), 11, 330–8; III, appx 10.Google Scholar

6 S. and B. Webb, Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes, vol. 4 of English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act (1906—29).

7 For a detailed study of the process here referred to, see Edwin Cannan, The History of Local Rates in England (2nd ed. 1912), chaps. 3–5. For a discussion of the narrow financial foundation see Final Report (England and Wales), Royal Commission on Local Taxation, p. 15; P.P., 1901, Cd. 638, xxiv.

8 It is not possible to put the growing discrepancy between the rise in urban rates and the rise in urban rateable value into figures, since there are no means of ascertaining urban rateable values over the country as a whole prior to 1880. The most detailed investigation of the problem for the period 1842–68 is Gosche's Report on Local Taxation; P.P., 1870 (470), lv. This showed a slight increase in the average rate per £ over all local authorities in England and Wales, and added that in rural areas the rateable value had risen faster than the total rates (pp. 28–9). This means that the opposite must have been true in urban areas. For the period 1868–91 the authority is Fowler's Report on Local Taxation; P.P., 1893–4 (168), lxxvii. This states clearly that between 1868 and 1891 in urban districts the amounts of the rates raised increased to a greater extent than the value of the rateable property’ (para. 33).

9 J. Watson Grice, National and Local Finance (1910), passim.

10 For the system of compounding here referred to see Keith-Lucas, B., The English Local Government Franchise (Oxford, 1952), 64–74. For the inability of landlords of working-class houses to recoup themselves fully see Minutes of Evidence, Select Committee of House of Lords on the operation of the Small Tenements Rating Act 1850, QQ. 79- 82, 87, 292, 601, 934–5, 1006, 1624, 1631; P.P., 1859 (56), vii.Google Scholar

11 Final Report (England and Wales), R.C. on Local Taxation, p. 109; P.P., 1901, Cd. 638, xxiv.

12 E.g. Barker, T. C. and Harris, J. R., A Merseyside Town in the Industrial Revolution, St Helen 1750–1900 (Liverpool, 1954), 290–1; Mins. of Evidence (England and Walts), R.C. on the Housing of the Working Classes, Q. 6815 (for Bristol); P.P., 1884–5, C. 4402–1, xxx. Mins. of Evidence, Sel. Cttee on the Rating of Tenements, evidence of Lowndes and Ford for Liverpool; P.P., 1837–8 (209), xxi. Mins. of Evidence, Sel. Cttee. HL on operation of Small Tenements Rating Act 1850, QQ. 312–19 (for Newcastle-upon-Tyne); P.P., 1859 (56), vii. I am indebted to Mr B. Keith-Lucas for the last two references.Google Scholar

13 Conrad, Gill, History of Birmingham(Oxford, 1952), 1, 409 ff.Google Scholar

14 Glyn, Roberts, The Municipal Development of the Borough of Swansea to 1900 (Swansea,1940). 47.Google Scholar

15 London School of Economics Library, Webb Local Government Collection, vol. 262, ‘Leeds Town Council 1835—1900’.

16 Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, Borough of Tottenham (1950), appx 11, ‘Public Health in Tottenham 1850–1872’.

17 L.S.E. Library, Webb Loc. Govt. Coll. vol. 260.

18 I use the term ‘Council’ for convenience, but in all cases, except where the context forbids it, Local Boards of Health are included.

19 Glyn Roberts, Swansea, 47–9.

20 Conrad Gill, Birmingham, 409 ff. The new assessment came into force in 1856. Bunce, J. T., History of the Corporation of Birmingham, 11 (Birmingham, 1885), 43.Google Scholar

21 A History of Macclesfield, ed. Davies, C. Stella (Manchester, 1961), 245–8.Google Scholar

22 Patterson, A. T., Radical Leicester 1780–1850(Leicester, 1954), 216–20.Google Scholar

23 V.H.C. Leicestershire, vol. IV (1958), 267–8, 276–9.

24 Our Partnership by Beatrice Webb, ed. Barbara, Drake and Margaret, Cole (1948), 166.Google Scholar

25 See Mr Chamberlain's Speeches, ed. Boyd, C. W. (1914), 1, 42.Google Scholar

26 Proceedings of the Birmingham Town Council, 12 and 19 February 1867, 7 May 1867, 25 January 1870, 26 April 1870; Birmingham Daily Post, 20 February 1867, 27 April 1870, Reports of Town Council Debates.

27 T. Avery,’The Municipal Expenditure of the Borough of Birmingham’, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report of the 35th Meeting (1866), 140; Birmingham Daily Post, 12 June 1867; Proc. Birmingham Town Council, 16 June 1868.

28 Bunce, J. T., Corporation of Birmingham, 11, 126Google Scholar ff. For this whole paragraph see also Hennock, E. P., ‘The Role of Religious Dissent in the Reform of Municipal Government in Birmingham, 1865—1876’. Introduction, unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1956.Google Scholar

29 S. E. Finer, Life and Times of Sir Edwin Ch.adim.ck(1952); R. A. Lewis, Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement 1832–1854(1952).

30 E. P. Hennock, ‘Urban Sanitary Reform a Generation before Chadwick?’, Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. x, 1 (1957), 113—19.

31 Hart, W. O., Hart's Introduction to the Law of Local Government and Administration (6th ed. 1957), 276–81.Google Scholar

32 Report, Sel. Cttee HL on the operation of the Small Tenements Rating Act 1850; P.P., 1859 (56), vII. The report of this committee and the evidence called by it is, however, strongly biased by the evident determination of its members to show that all the recent evils of municipal government were due to the spread of democracy.

33 Birmingham Daily Post, 31 March 1874.

34 Bunce, J. T., Corporation of Birmingham, II, 393.Google Scholar

35 Bunce, II, 237 ff.

36 Bunce, II, 47.

37 Arthur, Redford and Ina, Russell, History of Local Government in Manchester (1940), II, 87–9.Google Scholar

38 Redford and Russell, 11, 177–204.

39 L.S.E. Library, Webb Loc. Govt. Coll. vols. 262, 265; Leeds and its History (Yorkshire Post, 1926), 112; Leeds Mercury, 12 February 1853, p. 9, Report of Town Council Debate.

40 Glyn Roberts, Swansea, 33. See also p. 217 above.

41 The Webbs asserted that this was the case in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a particularly well-endowed corporation. L.S.E. Library, Webb Loc. Govt. Coll. vol. 217.

42 Qd. in Ashworth, W., The Genesis of Modern British Town Planning (1954), 98.Google Scholar

43 For the Birmingham Improvement Scheme see Bunce, J. T. and Vince, C. A., History of the Corporation of Birmingham, 11 (Birmingham, 1885), chap, xiv; III (Birmingham, 1902), chap. xvi. For Chamberlain's business career see J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, I (1932), 50–7, 171–4.Google Scholar

44 Chaloner, W. H., The Social and Economic Development of Crewe, 1 780–1923 (Manchester, 1950), chap. 2.Google Scholar

45 Calculated from Fowler's Report on Local Taxation, appxc, table I, p. 94; P.P., 1893–4168), lxxvII.

46 Calculated from Fowler's Report, appx c, table II. School Boards are not included in this calculation.

47 Calculated from Summary of Local Taxation Returns 1905–6; P.P., 1908 (276-III), xci. Poor Law Guardians are excluded from these three calculations, as also from the scope of this article.

48 This article was written before the latest reassessment of rateable value throughout England and Wales and the political discontent provoked by it. However, nothing that has been said or done in recent monhts would justify the view that the factors to which attention is drawn in this article have once more moved into a position of decisive importance.