that the bringing of special legislation to bear on special cases (as
the petition of these two boroughs would have demanded)
Metropolitan boroughs.
would be inexpedient as making against homogeneity.
Instead, the London Government Act of 1899 was
evolved. It brought into existence the twenty-eight
Metropolitan boroughs enumerated at the outset of this
article. The county of London may thus be regarded from the
administrative standpoint as consisting of twenty-nine contiguous
towns, counting the City of London. As regards the distribution
of powers and duties between the County Council and
the Borough Councils, and the constitution and working of each,
the underlying principle may be briefly indicated as giving all
powers and duties which require uniformity of action throughout
the whole of London to the County Council, and powers and duties
that can be locally administered to the Borough Councils.
Summary of Administrative Bodies.—The administrative bodies of the County of London may now be summarized:
1. London County Council.—Consists of 118 councillors, 2 elected by each parliamentary division (but the City of London elects 4); and 19 aldermen, with chairman, vice-chairman and deputy-chairman, elected in council. Triennial elections of councillors by householders (male and female) on the rate-books. Aldermen hold office for 6 years.
2. Metropolitan Boroughs.—Councils consist of a mayor and aldermen and councillors in proportion as 1 to 6. The commonest numbers, which cannot be exceeded, are 10 and 60 (see separate article on each borough). Triennial elections.
3. Corporation of the City of London.—The legislation of 1855, 1888 and 1899 left the government of the small area of the City in the hands of an unreformed Corporation. Here at least the medieval system, in spite of any anomalies with respect to modern conditions, has resisted reform, and no other municipal body shares the traditions and peculiar dignity of the City Corporation. This consists of a Lord Mayor, 26 aldermen and 206 common councilmen, forming the Court of Common Council, which is the principal administrative body. Its scope may be briefly indicated as including (a) duties exercised elsewhere by the Borough Councils, and by the London County Council (although that body is by no means powerless within the City boundaries); and (b) peculiar duties such as control of markets and police. The election of common councilmen, whose institution dates from the reign of Edward I., takes place annually, the electors being the ratepayers, divided among the twenty-five wards of the City. An alderman (q.v.) of each ward (save that the wards of Cripplegate within and without, share one) is elected for life. The Lord Mayor (q.v.) is elected by the Court of Aldermen from two aldermen nominated in the Court of Common Hall by the Livery, an electorate drawn from the members of the ancient trade gilds or Livery Companies (q.v.), which, through their control over the several trades or manufactures, had formerly an influence over the government of the city which from the time of Edward III. was paramount.
Non-administrative Arrangements.—The Local Government Act of 1888 dealt with the metropolis for non-administrative purposes as it did for administrative, that is to say, as a separate county. The arrangements of quarter-sessions, justices, coroners, sheriffs, &c., were thus brought into line with other counties, except in so far as the ordinary organization is modified by the existence of the central criminal court, the metropolitan police, police courts and magistrates, and a paid chairman of quarter-sessions. The powers of the governing body of the City, moreover, are as peculiar in this direction as in that of municipal administration, and the act left the City as a county of a city practically unchanged. Thus the Lord Mayor and aldermen possess judicial authority, and the police of London are divided into two separate bodies, the Metropolitan and the City Police (see Police).
The chief courts for the trial of criminal cases are the Central Criminal Court and the Court of Quarter-sessions. The Central Criminal Court, taking the place of the provincial Assizes, was established by an act of 1834. There are Courts. twelve sessions annually, under the Lord Mayor, aldermen and judges. They were formerly held in the “Old Bailey” sessions-house, but a fine new building from designs of E. W. Mountford took the place of this in 1906. Quarter-sessions for the county of London are held thirty-six times annually, for the north side of the Thames at the Sessions-house in Clerkenwell (Finsbury) and for the south side at that in Newington Causeway, Southwark. For judicial purposes Westminster was merged with the county of London in 1889, and the Liberty of the Tower was abolished in 1894. The separate court of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen is held at the Guildhall. The Metropolitan police courts are fourteen in number, namely—Bow Street, Covent Garden; Clerkenwell; Great Marlborough Street (Westminster); Greenwich and Woolwich; Lambeth; Marylebone; North London, Stoke Newington Road; Southwark; South Western, Lavender Hill (Battersea); Thames, Arbour Street East (Stepney); West Ham; West London, Vernon Street (Fulham); Westminster, Vincent Square; Worship Street (Shoreditch). The police courts of the City are held at the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor or an alderman sitting as magistrate, and at the Guildhall, where the aldermen preside in rotation. The prisons within the metropolis are Brixton, Holloway, Pentonville, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubbs. In the county of London there are 12 coroners’ districts, 19 petty sessional divisions (the City forming a separate one) and 13 county court districts (the City forming a separate one). The boundaries of these divisions do not in any way correspond with each other, or with the police divisions, or with the borough or parish boundaries. The registration county of London coincides with the administrative county.
Parliamentary Representation.—The London Government Act contains a saving clause by which “nothing in or done under this act shall be construed as altering the limits of any parliamentary borough or parliamentary county.” The parliamentary boroughs are thus in many cases named and bounded differently from the metropolitan boroughs. The parliamentary arrangements of each metropolitan borough are indicated in the separate articles on the boroughs. In the following list the boroughs which extend outside the administrative county of London are noted. Each division of each borough, or each borough where not divided, returns one member, save that the City of London returns two members.
(a) North of the Thames. (1) Bethnal Green—Divs.: North-eastern, South-western. (2) Chelsea (detached portion in administrative county of Middlesex, Kensal Town). (3) Finsbury (detached portion in Middlesex, Muswell Hill)—Divs.: Holborn, Central, Eastern. (5) Fulham. (6) Hackney—Divs.: North, Central, South. (7) Hammersmith. (8) Hampstead. (9) Islington—Divs.: Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western. (10) Kensington—Divs.: Northern, Southern. (11) City of London. (12) Marylebone—Divs.: Eastern, Western. (13) Paddington (extending into Middlesex)—Divs.: Northern, Southern. (14) St George’s Hanover Square. (15) St Pancras—Divs.: Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western. (16) Shoreditch—Divs.: Hoxton, Haggerston. (17) Strand. (18) Tower Hamlets—Divs.: Bow and Bromley, Limehouse, Mile End, Poplar, St George, Stepney, Whitechapel. (19) Westminster.
A detached portion of the parliamentary division of Hornsey, Middlesex, is in the metropolitan borough of Hackney. London University returns a member.
(b) South of the Thames. (1) Battersea and Clapham—Divs.: Battersea, Clapham. (2) Camberwell (extending into Kent)—Divs.: Northern, Peckham, Dulwich. (3) Deptford. (4) Greenwich. (5) Lambeth—Divs.: Northern, Kennington, Brixton, Norwood. (6) Lewisham. (7) Newington—Divs.: Western, Walworth. (8) Southwark—Divs.: Western, Rotherhithe, Bermondsey. (9) Wandsworth. (10) Woolwich.
Part of the Wimbledon parliamentary division of Surrey is in the metropolitan borough of Wandsworth.
Ecclesiastical Divisions and Denominations.—London north of the Thames is within the Church of England bishopric of London, the bishop’s palace being at Fulham. In this diocese, which covers nearly the whole of Middlesex and a very small portion of Hertfordshire, are the suffragan bishoprics of Islington, Kensington and Stepney. The bishopric of Southwark was created in 1904, having been previously a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Rochester. The county contains 612 ecclesiastical parishes. Westminster is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishopric in England, and Southwark is a bishopric. Among the numerous chapels of dissenting bodies there may be mentioned the City Temple, Congregational, on Holborn Viaduct; the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Baptist, in Southwark, the creation of which was the outcome of the labours of the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon (d. 1892); and Wesley’s Chapel, City Road, in the graveyard of which is the tomb of John Wesley; his house, which adjoins the chapel, being open as a memorial museum. In 1903 the Wesleyans acquired the site of the Royal Aquarium, near Westminster Abbey, for the erection of a central hall. The Great Synagogue of the Jews is in St James’ Place, Aldgate.
