Municipal Reform Bill
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| Long title | An Act to provide for the Regulation of Municipal Corporations in England and Wales |
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| Citation | 5 & 6 Will.4 c.76 |
| Territorial extent | England and Wales |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 9 September 1835 |
| Commencement | 1 January 1836 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealed by | Municipal Corporations Act 1882 |
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Status: Repealed
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The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Wm. IV., c.76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales. The legislation was part of the reform programme of the Whigs and followed the Reform Act 1832, which had abolished most of the rotten boroughs for parliamentary purposes.
The government of Lord Grey, having carried reform out of parliamentary constituencies, turned its attention to local government. In February 1833 a select committee was appointed "to inquire into the state of the Municipal Corporations in England, Wales, and Ireland; and to report if any, and what abuses existed in them, and what measures, in their opinion, it would be most expedient to adopt, with a view to the correction of those abuses". The committee made their report in June 1833, having enquired into a handful of boroughs. The committee found that:
The jurisdiction of the corporations is defective in some case in consequence of the town having been extended beyond the limits of the ancient borough; and in other cases it is objectionable from extending to places that are distant, and more properly falling within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates.
The principle which prevails of a small portion of corporators choosing those who are to be associated with them in power, generally for life, is felt to be a great grievance. The tendency of this principle is to maintain an exclusive system, to uphold local, political and religious party feelings, and is destructive of that confidence which ought always to be reposed in those who are intrusted with control, judicial or otherwise, over their fellow ciitizens...
The committee are further led to infer that corporations, as now constituted, are not adapted to the present state of society... To make corporations instruments of useful and efficient local government, it seems to be essential that the corporate officers should be more popularly chosen...[and] that their proceedings should be open and subject to control of public opinion.
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