Royal Commission on the Unification of London

The Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London was a royal commission which considered the means for amalgamating the ancient City of London with the County of London, which had been created in 1889. The commission reported in 1894. The government headed by Lord Rosebery accepted the recommendations of the commission, but when a Conservative government under Lord Salisbury came to power in 1895 the reforms were almost entirely abandoned.

The administration of the metropolitan area of London, and the possible reform of the ancient City of London had been prominent political topics since the 1830s. Recommendations by royal commissions given in 1837, 1854 and 1867 had largely been left unimplemented. The Local Government Act 1888 had set up a County of London which surrounded, but did not include, the square-mile and main business district of the City of London. London was therefore governed by the Corporation of London at its core and the London County Council for its metropolitan area.

When the first London County Council was elected, the Progressive Party, closely allied to the parliamentary Liberals, took control. The first chairman of the LCC, Lord Rosebery, was strongly in favour of the unification of the city and county. Campaigning for the second county council elections in 1892, he set out the position of the Progressives:

The present arrangement by which a comparatively small district in the centre of London is detached from London and held aloof cannot be maintained. The object of parliament and of reformers must be that the city should be united with London as soon as possible and with as little friction as possible. Of all London reforms I lay infinitely the most stress on this, because each can supply what the other lacks, because so many reforms are contingent on it, and because you cannot have a complete municipality without it.

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