The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41). The 1894 legislation introduced elected councils at district and parish level.
The principal effects of the act were: The creation a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils. These, along with the town councils of municipal boroughs created earlier in the century, formed a second tier of local government below the existing county councils. The establishment of elected parish councils in rural areas. The reform of the boards of guardians of poor law unions. The entitlement of women who owned property to vote in local elections, become poor law guardians, and act on school boards.
The new district councils were based on the existing urban and rural sanitary districts. Many of the latter had lain in more than one ancient county, whereas the new rural districts were to be in a single administrative county.
The act also reorganised civil parishes, so that none of them lay in more than one district and hence did not cross administrative boundaries.
Although the act made no provision to abolish the hundreds, which had previously been the only widely used administrative unit between the parish and the county in size,Mapping the Hundreds of England and Wales in GIS University of Cambridge Department of Geography, published 06-06-08, accessed 2011-10-12 the reorganisation displaced their remaining functions. Several ancient hundred names lived on in the names of the districts that superseded them.
Background The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) had introduced elected county councils. The passing of the act had been part of the price for Liberal Unionist support for Lord Salisbury's minority Conservative administration. An innovation in the act was that all electors had a single vote, and thus county councillors were popularly elected. The members of other local bodies were elected by a system of weighted voting, with those owning more property having multiple votes. The original Local Government Bill of 1888 had included provisions for creating district as well as county councils. However the President of the Local Government Board, Charles Ritchie, had some difficulty in having the legislation passed by Parliament, and dropped the district council clauses for fear that the entire bill might be lost due to opposition from the government's own backbenchers.
The Liberal opposition berated the government for failing to create district councils. At the same time they put forward proposals for establishing councils at parish level. John Morley, MP for Newcastle, told a meeting in Reading:
The Earl of Kimberley explained to a meeting in Walworth that the party wanted to create:
The Liberals tried to amend the Agricultural Smallholdings Act 1892 as it passed through parliament, seeking to add clauses creating parish councils which would have the power to buy and sell land in order to increase the number of smallholdings. In rejecting the amendments, Henry Chaplin, President of the Board of Agriculture, claimed the government intended: ... on a proper and fitting occasion, when opportunity arises, to deal not only with the question of District Councils, but the question also of parochial reform.
Parliament was dissolved in June 1892, and a general election called. The Liberals made the introduction of district and parish councils part of their programme. Following the election the Liberals under William Ewart Gladstone formed an administration with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Local Government Bill (also referred to as the Parish Councils Bill) was published by H. H. Fowler, the President of the Local Government Board, on 26 March 1893.
The bill
The bill consisted of 71 clauses arranged in five parts. The first part dealt with rural parishes, and provided that: Any parish included in a rural sanitary district was deemed a "rural parish". Parishes that lay partly in a rural sanitary district and partly in an urban sanitary district; or in more than one administrative county, were to be divided into separate parishes. Parishes with a population of 300 or more were to have parish councils. Parishes with a lower population were to be grouped with other parishes so as to reach a population of 300 and have a joint parish council. Each parish was to have a parish meeting at which each elector had a single vote on all matters raised. Parish councillors would have a one-year term of office, with the old council retiring and the new council coming into office on 15 April. Parish councils were to consist of a chairman and councillors. There were to be between five and fifteen councillors, with the number fixed by the county council. Nominations to the council were to be made at a parish meeting previous to 15 April, and if there were more candidates than vacancies, a poll was to be held. Every parish council was to be a body corporate with perpetual succession. Where there was doubt as to the name of the parish, this was to be fixed by the county council. The parish council would be permitted to hold their meetings free of charge in a room in a state-supported public elementary school. The parish council was to assume all powers exercised by parish vestries except those dealing with the church or ecclesiastical charities. Examples included the maintenance of closed burial grounds, ownership of village greens and recreation grounds and operation of fire engines. A parish council could also take over any property of the poor law guardians within the parish with the approval of the Local Government Board. Parish councils could take on powers under various statutes relating to bath houses, street lighting, burials or libraries. Parish councils were to have power to buy or receive the gift of land or property to provide any of these services.
The second part of the bill dealt with poor law guardians and district councils. Among its provisions were that: There were to be no ex officio or nominated guardians Women were to be eligible to be guardians. Guardians were to be elected by parish electors on a "one man - one vote" basis. Guardians were to have a three-year term of office, with one-third of the board retiring annually. New guardians were to come into office on 15 April. Urban sanitary authorities were to renamed "urban district councils", and urban sanitary districts as "urban districts". The titles of municipal boroughs and their town councils, although they ranked as urban districts, were not to be altered, however. Rural sanitary authorities were to renamed "rural district councils", and rural sanitary districts as "rural districts". The chairman of each district council was to be an ex officio justice of the peace.
The third part of the bill detailed the duties of the county council in dealing with divided areas and small parishes. The county council had the power to name divided parishes and to combine areas. The fourth and fifth parts of the bill dealt with the first election of councils and transitory provisions.
Passage through Parliament Speaking in the Commons on 21 March 1893, Fowler set out the complicated system of local government that was in need of reform. England and Wales were divided into:
62 counties, 302 Municipal Boroughs, 31 Improvement Act Districts, 688 Local Government Districts, 574 Rural Sanitary Districts, 58 Port Sanitary Districts, 2,302 School Board Districts ... 1,052 Burial Board Districts, 648 Poor Law Unions, 13,775 Ecclesiastical Parishes, and nearly 15,000 Civil Parishes. The total number of Authorities which tax the English ratepayers is between 28,000 and 29,000. Not only are we exposed to this multiplicity of authority and this confusion of rating power, but the qualification, tenure, and mode of election of members of these Authorities differ in different cases.
He explained that the government had chosen the civil parish as the basic unit of local government in rural areas. He estimated that there were approximately 13,000 rural parishes and a decision had been made that all those with a population of 300 or more were to have a parish council. This limit had been chosen as the Local Government Board already possessed powers to group parishes below this population for the election of guardians. There were approximately 6,000 small parishes in this category. Parish councils were to be limited in their expenditure, and were to be confined to charging rates of one penny in the pound unless they had the consent of both the parish meeting and the district council.
Turning to the government of towns he explained: We shall convert the Improvement Commissioners and Local Boards into Urban District Councils; we shall abolish all plural voting; we shall propose to abolish all qualifications, for we think the only qualification a man ought to possess is the confidence of his constituents; and we propose to make women capable of serving on these District Councils.
He then turned to reform of rural authorities: Then as regards rural districts, the union is the administrative area with which we have to deal. Except in 25 cases, in which, if I may use the expression, the union consists of a single parish, the union is an aggregation of parishes. There are 648 unions altogether. There are 137 in two counties and 32 in three counties. The Guardians by whom the union is administered are elected or ex officio. The Local Government Board fixes the number of elected Guardians, but there is required to be one Guardian for every constituent parish. There is a property qualification and plural voting, and voting by proxy. We could not ask the House to continue the existing powers in, much less to confer new powers upon, an authority so constituted and so irresponsible ... We therefore propose to abolish, firstly, all ex officio or non-elective Guardians ... there shall be no plural voting, no proxy voting, and no voting papers, but voting by Ballot and One Man One Vote ... Having made the Guardians a popularly elected body, we do not propose to disturb the existing machinery. We take the Rural Sanitary Authority as it now exists, but elected and qualified under new conditions, and we continue that as the Rural District Council. Therefore, the Rural District Council will be the old Rural Sanitary Authority altered, and, I think, very much improved ... Then we propose to abolish all separate Highway Authorities in rural districts and to transfer the whole powers of the Highway Board or the highway parish to the Rural District Council.
Finally he described how the boundaries of the districts and parishes were to be arrived at: At present we have rural sanitary districts, partly within and partly without the county, and we have parishes partly within and partly without rural sanitary districts. We have 174 rural sanitary districts and some 800 parishes so situate. We propose that every parish is to be within one county, that the district of every District Council is to be within one county, and that the County Councils shall have the duty of readjusting the existing overlapping areas and divisions. We think the County Council far the best tribunal to undertake this duty. They understand the localities, and how the districts can best be divided. They are to have 12 months in which to discharge their duty; and if at the end of that period they have not made this readjustment, it will devolve upon the Local Government Board to interfere and carry the matter out.
The bill returned, in amended form, for a second reading in November 1893. In reintroducing the bill to the Commons, Fowler outlined the objections that had been made, and the government's response.