Metropolitan Board of Works
| Metropolitan Board of Works | |
|---|---|
| One third of board appointed every year | |
| Type | |
| Type |
Board of works of The Metropolis
|
| Houses | Unicameral |
|
Term limits
|
Three years |
| History | |
| Founded | December 1855 |
| Disbanded | March 1889 |
| Preceded by | |
| Succeeded by | London County Council |
| Leadership | |
|
Chairman
|
|
| Structure | |
| Seats |
|
| Committees |
|
| Elections | |
| Indirect election | |
| Meeting place | |
 |
|
| Spring Gardens (1859–1889) | |
The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of London-wide government from December 1855 until the establishment of the London County Council in March 1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to cope with London's rapid growth, which it accomplished. The MBW was an appointed rather than elected body. This lack of accountability made it unpopular with Londoners, especially in its latter years when it fell prey to corruption.
London's growth had rapidly accelerated with the increase in railway commuting from the 1830s onwards. However, its local government was chaotic, with hundreds of authorities having varying fields of responsibility and overlapping geographic boundaries. Providing a specific service in a given area might need the co-ordination of many of these authorities.
In 1835 elected municipal boroughs had been set up covering every major city except London. The City of London, only the very core of the sprawling metropolis, was untouched by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and resisted all moves to expand its borders to include the poorer inner-city districts surrounding it. This meant that three counties had authority over the metropolitan area: Middlesex covered the area north of the Thames and west of the River Lea, Surrey the area to the south and south-west, and Kent the far south east.
In 1837 an attempt was made to set up a London-wide elected authority; however, the wealthier districts of Marylebone and Westminster resisted this and ultimately defeated the move. In 1854 the Royal Commission on the City of London proposed to divide London into seven boroughs, each represented on a Metropolitan Board of Works. The proposal to divide the city into boroughs was abandoned, but the board of works was set up in 1855.
In order to have a local body to coordinate local work to plan London, Parliament passed the Metropolis Management Act 1855 which created the Metropolitan Board of Works (which also took over the responsibilities of the short-lived Metropolitan Buildings Office and Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, established in 1845 and 1848 respectively). It covered the area designated London in the 1851 census (an enlarged variant of the Bills of mortality area fixed in 1726), the alternative proposals had been that it should cover the Metropolitan Police District, the area that coal tax was levied or the area used for the Metropolitan Interments Act 1852.
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Wikipedia