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From oligarchy to a ‘rate payer's democracy’: the evolution of the Corporation of London, 1680s–1750s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2012

MARK LATHAM
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Abstract:

Between the Glorious Revolution and the mid-eighteenth century the governance of the Corporation of London was transformed from an oligarchy of aldermen to a ‘rate payer's democracy’. Previous analyses of this transformation have produced a contradictory picture of how and why this shift in governance occurred. By analysing the Corporation's progress to democracy from an administrative perspective, this article argues that this process was more evolutionary in nature than has previously been suggested.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 225 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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27 For a more detailed description of the BHLC, see M. Latham, ‘The London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756’, unpublished University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 2009, 40–61.

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29 Webb and Webb, Manor and Borough, 641–2 and 664.

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42 LMA/BHJ COL/CC/BHC/01/07, 1 Mar. 1738, undated Dec. 1738. LMA/BHJ COL/CC/BHC/01/08, 6 Jul. 1743.

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44 LMA/BHJ COL/CC/BHC/01/10.

45 LMA/BHJ COL/CC/BHC/01/06.

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53 LMA/RCA COL/CA/01/01/113 fols.102 and 426 (1708).

54 LMA/CCCJ COL/CC/01/01/058 fols. 50, 147, 207 (1738–40); LMA/CCCJ COL/CC/01/01/058 fol. 302 (1743).

55 LMA/CCCJ COL/CC/01/01/058 fol. 207 (1740); LMA/BHJ COL/CC/BHC/01/08, 7 Dec. 1743; LMA/CCCJ COL/CC/01/01/058 fol. 313 (1743).

56 Doolittle, ‘City of London’, 224; LMA/CCCJ COL/CC/01/01/059 fol. 193 (1749).

57 A more detailed examination of these accusations of corruption is planned for a forthcoming article.

58 See n. 21 above and Sweet, R., ‘Corrupt and corporate bodies: attitudes to corruption in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century towns’, in Moore, J. and Smith, J. (eds.), Corruption in Urban Politics and Society, Britain 1780–1950 (Aldershot, 2007), 41–56Google Scholar.

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65 LMA/LBICM COL/CC/LBI/02/001, 1 Feb. 1757; LMA, London Bridge Improvement Committee papers, COL/CC/LBI/03/001 (1754–65)

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