Of all the major cities of Britain, London, the world metropolis, was the last to acquire a modern municipal government. Its antiquated administrative system led to repeated crises as the population doubled within a few decades and reached more than two million in the 1840s. Essential services such as sanitation, water supply, street paving and lighting, relief of the poor, and maintenance of the peace were managed by the vestries of ninety-odd parishes or precincts plus divers ad hoc authorities or commissions. In 1855, with the establishment of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the groundwork began to be laid for a rational municipal government. Owen tells in absorbing detail the story of the operations of the Metropolitan Board of Works, its political and other problems, and its limited but significant accomplishments--including the laying down of 83 miles of sewers and the building of the Thames Embankments--before it was replaced in 1889 by the London County Council. His account, based on extensive archival research, is balanced, judicious, lucid, often witty and always urbane.

Excerpt from London Government Under the Local Government Act, 1888 It will not merely absorb the functions of county authorities, but will succeed to all the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works. That board came into existence on January 1, 1856, and it will pass away on April 1, 1889, having had a life of thirty-three years and three months. During that period it has exercised an enormous influence upon the municipal aflairs of London. It has constructed a main drainage system at a cost of more than six millions and a half: embanked the Thames: freed most of the bridges from toll: constructed vast arteries of street communication: established and maintained a metropolitan fire brigade: provided and maintained 2603 acres of parks and open spaces free to the public for ever: exercised a controlling jurisdiction over the half-million buildings of London cleared vast insanitary areas: and in many other ways discharged under more than 120 Acts of Parliament important municipal functions in London. The transfer by a single clause in an Act of Parliament of the powers, duties, and liabilities of an Authority of this kind to a directly elected municipality, is an operation the boldness of which is not less striking than its magnitude. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.