A European Informational Website
learn more
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (excluding Scotland), to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. The Local Government Act 1972 abolished them in England and Wales, but they are still used in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 re-introduced the term for certain "principle areas" in Wales.
Scotland did not have county boroughs but instead counties of cities. These were abolished on May 16, 1975. All four Scottish cities of the time — Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow — were included in this category. There was an additional category of large burgh in the Scottish system, which were responsible for all services apart from police, education and fire.
When county councils were first created in 1889, it was decided that to let them have authority over large towns or cities would be impractical, and so any large incorporated place would have the right to be a county borough, and thus independent from the administrative county it would otherwise come under. Originally 10 county boroughs were proposed, but the Local Government Act 1888 as eventually passed created 61 in England, and two in Wales. (The ten in question were Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham and Sheffield.)
Initially, a town had to have a population of over 50,000 to apply to be made a county borough. The granting of county borough status was a subject of much argument between the large municipal boroughs and the county councils. Additionally, county borough borders were tightly constrained because of county council reluctance to give up their tax base. Several exceptions were allowed: mainly for historic county towns: Bath, Canterbury, Chester, Dudley, Gloucester, Oxford and Worcester were all under the 50,000 limit in the 1901 census (Canterbury even under 25,000). Various new county boroughs were constituted in the following decades as more boroughs reached the 50,000 minimum and then promoted Acts to constitute them county boroughs. County boroughs to be constituted in this era were a mixed bag, including some towns that would continue to expand such as Bournemouth and Southend-on-Sea. Other towns such as Burton upon Trent and Dewsbury were not to not increase in population much past 50,000.
1913 saw the attempts of Luton and Cambridge to gain county borough status defeated in the House of Commons, despite the approval of the Local Government Board — the removal of Cambridge from Cambridgeshire would have reduced the income of Cambridgeshire County Council by over half.
Upon recommendation of a commission chaired by the Earl of Onslow, the population threshold was raised to 75,000 in 1926, by the Local Government (County Boroughs and Adjustments) Act 1926, which also made it much harder to expand boundaries. The threshold was raised to 100,000 by the Local Government Act 1958.
The viability of the county borough of Merthyr Tydfil came into question in the 1930s. Due to a decline in the heavy industries of the town, by 1932 more than half the male population was unemployed, resulting in very high municipal rates in order to make public assistance payments. At the same time the population of the borough was lower than when it had been created in 1908.[1] A royal commission was appointed in May 1935 to "investigate whether the existing status of Merthyr Tydfil as a county borough should be continued, and if not, what other arrangements should be made".[2] The commission reported the following November, and recommended that Merthyr should revert to the status of a non-county borough, and that public assistance should be taken over by central government. In the event county borough status was retained by the town, with the chairman of the Welsh Board of Health appointed as administrative adviser in 1936.[3]
After the Second World War the creation of new county boroughs in England and Wales was effectively suspended, pending a local government review. A government white paper published in 1945 stated that "it is expected that there will be a number of Bills for extending or creating county boroughs" and proposed the creation of a boundary commission to bring coordination to local government reform. The policy in the paper also ruled out the creation of new county boroughs in Middlesex "owing to its special problems".[4] The Local Government Boundary Commission was appointed on 26 October, 1945, under the chairmanship of Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve,[5] delivering its report in 1947.[6] The Commission recommended that towns with a population of 200,000 or more should become one-tier "new counties", with "new county boroughs" having a population of 60,000 - 200,000 being "most-purpose authorities", with the county council of the administrative county providing certain limited services. The report envisaged the creation of 47 two-tiered "new counties", 21 one-tiered "new counties" and 63 "new county boroughs". The recommendations of the Commission extended to a review of the division of functions between different tiers of local government, and thus fell outside its terms of reference, and its report was not acted upon.
The next attempt at reform was by the Local Government Act 1958, which established the Local Government Commission for England and the Local Government Commission for Wales to carry out reviews of existing local government structures and recommend reforms. Although the Commissions did not complete their work before being dissolved, a handful of new county boroughs were constituted between 1964 and 1968. Luton, Torbay, and Solihull gained county borough status. Additionally, Teesside county borough was formed from the merger of the existing county borough of Middlesbrough, and the non-county boroughs of Stockton-on-Tees and Redcar; Warley was formed from the county borough of Smethwick and the non-county boroughs of Oldbury and Rowley Regis; and West Hartlepool was merged with Hartlepool. Following these changes, there was a total of 79 county boroughs in England. The Commission also recommended the downgrading of Barnsley to be a non-county borough, but this was not carried out.
The County Borough of East Ham, County Borough of West Ham and County Borough of Croydon were abolished in 1965 with the creation of Greater London. The remaining county boroughs were abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, and replaced with non-metropolitan districts and metropolitan districts, all beneath county councils in a two-tier structure.
This situation did not persist long, and in the 1990s most of the old county boroughs were reformed again as unitary authorities — essentially the same as a county borough. In England, most of those former county boroughs that did not gain unitary authority status — Barrow-in-Furness, Burnley, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Eastbourne, Exeter, Gloucester, Hastings, Lincoln, Northampton, Oxford, Preston, Worcester, and Yarmouth — have given their names to non-unitary local government districts (in some cases coterminous with the old county borough, in other cases much larger). Burton upon Trent became an unparished area in the East Staffordshire borough, and has now been divided into several parishes.
In Wales, several Principal Areas are called county boroughs:
(Newport was a made a county borough again in 1996. In 2002 it acquired city status.)
For all practical purposes, county boroughs are exactly the same as the other principal areas of Wales called "counties" or "cities" as all these areas are run by unitary authorities (i.e.: have the functions of both boroughs and counties).
The map depicts the county boroughs in England immediately prior to their abolition in 1974. County boroughs in Wales and Monmouthshire are not shown.
This table shows those county boroughs that existed in England and Wales between the Local Government Acts of 1888 (that created them) and 1972 (that abolished them from 1974). <br />
† had Charter Trustees
Only four districts with more than one county borough were formed: Wirral, Sandwell, Sefton and Kirklees. Elsewhere, county boroughs usually formed the core or all of a district named after the county borough - with the exceptions of Halifax, whose metropolitan district was named Calderdale, Burton upon Trent, which became part of the East Staffordshire district, and Teesside, which was split up between three non-metropolitan districts.
In Northern Ireland, local government has not used them since 1973, but the county boroughs remain in use for Lieutenancy.
The two county boroughs in Northern Ireland were replaced with two larger districts (Belfast and Derry), are only in use for Lieutenancy.
In the Republic of Ireland, county boroughs have been renamed 'cities', and their corporations become 'city councils'.
In the Republic of Ireland, the relevant legislation remained still in force (although amended), and county boroughs on the original model existed until 2001. Under the Local Government Act 2001 (which replaced most existing local government legislation in Ireland), the term "County Borough" was abolished and replaced with "City" (and hence, "Corporation" with "City Council"). However Kilkenny, while a city, is instead administered as a town (and part of the county council area) for local government purposes. It is allowed to use the title "Borough Council" instead of "Town Council" however.