XLIX. On the ninth day of November in every year the Council of the borough shall elect out of the aldermen or councillors of such borough a fit person to be the mayor of such borough. LI. That every person . . . who shall be elected to the office of alderman, councillor, auditor, or assessor, and every councillor who shall be elected to the office of mayor for any borough shall accept such office . . . or shall in lieu thereof pay such fine. as the Council of such borough shall declare. ... ... LVII. That the mayor for the time being . . . shall be a justice of the peace of and for such a borough . . . and in boroughs which return a member . . . to serve in parliament . . . shall be the returning officer at all such elections. ... LVIII. That the Council of every borough . . . shall appoint a fit person, not being a member of the Council, to be the town-clerk of such borough.... (LX.-LXXIII. As to Coroners, removal of officers, and meetings of the Council, compensation, charitable trusts, etc.) LXXVI. That the Council shall . . . appoint . . . a sufficient number of their own body who, together with the mayor shall be . . . the watch committee of such borough . . . and such watch committee shall appoint a sufficient number of fit men who shall be sworn in before some justice of the peace. . . to act as constables for preserving the peace day and night. . . ... ... (LXXVII.-LXXXVI. Duties of Constables, penalties for assaults, etc.) (LXXXVII.-LXXXIX. Powers for regulating lighting.) XC. That it shall be lawful for the Council of any borough to make such bye-laws as to them shall meet for the good rule and government of the borough. ... (XCI.-XCVII. Finance, leases, watch rate, etc.) XCVIII. That it shall be lawful for his majesty . . . to assign to so many persons as he shall think proper his majesty's commission to act as justices of the peace in and for each borough. . . . (XCIX.-CXXXIV. Regulations as to Justices, separate Quarter Sessions, Recorders, jurisdiction of Borough courts, jurors, etc.) The remainder (CXXXV.-CXIII.) deals with exemptions from the Act e.g. the Cinque Ports, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, etc. Schedules are appended giving lists:-A. Boroughs to have a Commission of the Peace. B. Boroughs to have such Commission on Petition and grant. And various forms for complying with the Regulations of the Act. (See Redlich and Hirst, E.L.G. i. 98-419; Gneist, E.C. 723-748; Rogers, P.L. iii. 153-163; Somers Vine, The English Municipal Code.) B. (COUNTY COUNCILS) 51 & 52 VICT. Cap. 41, 1888. An Act to amend the Laws relating to Local Government in England and Wales. 1. A Council shall be established in every administrative County, with the management of administrative and financial business, and consist of a chairman, aldermen, and councillors. 2. The Council shall be constituted and elected as the Council of a Borough divided into wards, with the exception of certain specified points as regards the councillors, their numbers, etc. The voters shall be, in a borough, burgesses as defined by 45 & 46 Vict. c. 50 (Municipal Corporation Act, 1882) and elsewhere as defined by this Act. The chairman to be so called, and to be ex officio a justice of the peace. 3. The administrative business of the justices in Quarter Sessions shall be transferred to the County Council, particularly the levying of all rates, borrowing of money, power over county buildings, licensing of music, dancing places, licensing of race-courses, asylums for pauper lunatics, reformatory schools, bridges and roads, county officials, salaries, etc. 4. The Local Government Board may transfer additional local powers. 5. The County Council shall appoint Coroners. 7. Certain powers of the Justices out of sessions (licensing of theatres, etc.) are transferred. 9. The powers of quarter sessions and of justices out of sessions with regard to the police to be vested jointly in Quarter Sessions and the County Council. 10. The Local Government Board may transfer powers of certain Government Departments. 11. The County Council shall maintain the roads. 14, 17, 18, 19. The County Council to have certain powers as a sanitary authority, and appoint and act on reports of officers of health. 15. Power to oppose Bills in Parliament. 16. Power to make bye-laws. §§ 20-27 define the Financial relations between the National Exchequer and the County, and the contributions by the County for the cost of Union officers. 28. Power to delegate business to a Committee of the County or District Council, or of the justices in petty sessions. 30. A standing joint Committee of quarter sessions and the County Council for police, clerk of the peace, officers, etc. 31. Certain large boroughs named in a schedule (with a population of not less than 50,000) are made administrative counties and called county boroughs. 32–34. The financial and administrative relations of the county boroughs to the counties in which they are situated are defined. 35: The Act is applied as regards certain provisions to "quarter sessions boroughs" (not in the schedule of § 31, but having a population of not less than 10,000). 40. The Act is applied in transfer of powers, duties, and liabilities to the Metropolis, which is to be an administrative County; but the County of the city of London for jurisdiction and other non-administrative purposes is reserved as a separate County, unless the mayor and citizens thereof desire the contrary. And for the administrative County of London the number of councillors shall be double the number of members of Parliament for the area defined. 42. On petition from the Council the Crown may appoint a paid chairman of quarter sessions for the County of London. 43. The London County Council shall make certain payments to Poor Law Unions within the County. 44, 45. The London County Council shall take over the duties of Metropolitan asylum managers and other duties. §§ 46-63 deal with application of the Act to Special Counties, Liberties, definition of areas, boundaries, districts, etc. § 64-73 define the financial powers, the power to acquire lands, borrow money, audit accounts, the annual budget, etc., of the County Council. §§ 75-78 define the procedure and machinery of elections, etc. §§ 79-82 define the procedure of business at meetings. § 82 provides for the appointment of a clerk of the peace and of the County Council, but in the administrative County of London they are to be two distinct officials. §§ 85-126 are supplemental and contain a great number of "Transitory Provisions." The Third schedule catalogues the name of 61 Boroughs under § 31 which are to be County Boroughs. Note: The qualification and registration of County electors are defined in the County Electors Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 10), viz. 1. The burgess qualification of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50, § 9). Full age, 12 months' occupation of a house, shop, or other building, residence in or within 7 miles of the borough, rating for, and payment of rates of, the qualifying property unless disqualified as an alien, by parochial relief, or by a statutory disentitlement. 2. Occupation of land of the value of £10. (See Redlich and Hirst, E.L.G. i. 104; Chalmers, L.G., and Odgers, L.G.; Gneist, S.G.; Macmorran and Dill, The Local Government Act of 1888, 3rd ed.) C. (PARISH COUNCILS) 56 & 57 VICT. CAP. 73, 1894. An Act to make further provision for Local Government in England and Wales. Part I. 1. There shall be a parish meeting for every rural parish, and there shall be a parish Council for every rural parish which has a population of three hundred or upwards; but the County Council may (a) establish on petition from a parish meeting a parish Council in parishes with a popula tion of 100 or more, entitled under (1) only to a parish meeting; (b) group with their consent parishes under a common parish Council, but each parish shall retain its separate parish meeting. 2. The parish meeting shall consist of "parochial electors," i.e. persons registered as electors in the local government or parliamentary registers. 3. The Parish Council shall be elected for one year from the parochial electors and consist of a chairman and councillors, not less than 5 and not more than 15. No disqualification by sex or marriage. The Parish Council shall be a body corporate. 5, 6. The Parish Council to have powers to appoint overseers of the poor, and additional overseers in the place of the churchwardens, and take over the powers, duties, and liabilities of the vestry except "so far as relates to the affairs of the church or ecclesiastical charities," the powers of overseers and churchwardens in respect to poor and county rate, and statutory powers with regard to the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, and the Allotment Acts of 1887 and 1890. 7. Power conferred to adopt statutory powers conferred by "the adoptive Acts," e.g. Lighting (1833), Baths and Washhouses (1846-1882), Burial (1832-1885), Public Improvements (1860), Public Libraries (1892), etc. 8, 9, 10. Additional powers conferred to acquire buildings, lands, water, control sewage, rights of way, hiring of lands for allotments, etc. 11. But no financial liability may be incurred without the consent of a parish meeting which involves a rate exceeding 3d. in the Pound or a loan without the approval of the County Council. 12. The powers of a Parish Council to borrow are defined and limited; (i.e. mainly subject to the approval of the Local Government Board and County Council). 14. Powers as regards public property and charities defined and limited. Part II. 20. As regards Boards of Guardians, ex officio and nominated Guardians to cease; for the future Guardians to be parochial electors for a parish in the union, elected by parochial electors for 3 years. No disqualification by sex or marriage. 21. (a) Urban sanitary authorities to be called Urban District Councils; (b) rural sanitary districts to have a Rural District Council. 22. The chairman of a District Council, unless a woman, to be a justice of the peace for the County. 23. Every Urban District, not a borough, to have a District Council of councillors, all of whom are to be elected by parochial electors for three years, such councillors themselves being qualified as parochial electors. No disqualification by sex or marriage. 24. Rural District Councils to consist of a chairman and councillors elected by the parishes or other areas for electing guardians in the district. 25, 26, 27. Definition of the powers of District Councils in sanitary, highway matters, and powers transferred from the powers of justices out of session. 30. The provisions of the Act respecting guardians to apply to the administrative County of London and every County borough. (Part III., 36-42, deals with areas and boundaries.) (Part IV., 43-77, deals mainly with parish meetings and elections, place of meeting, procedure, registration, definition of the relations of these newly constituted bodies to each other, to the County Council and the Central Authority, the Local Government Board.) Note § 43. No woman to be disqualified by marriage from being registered as an elector, provided husband and wife are not qualified in respect of the same property. § 66. "Nothing in this act shall affect the trusteeship, management or control of any elementary school" (i.e. as within the meaning of the Elementary Education Act, 1870). §76. "This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland." (Part V., 78-89, are "Transitory Provisions.") (See Redlich and Hirst, E.L.G. ii. 117-232.) IV. THE REORGANIZATION OF THE CENTRAL AND (Owing to the length, complexity, and technical character of these Acts, a summary rather than a reproduction of the text is given. But so far as possible in important matter the phraseology of the Acts is preserved.) A. THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL (3 & 4 WILLIAM IV. CAP. 41, 1833). An Act for the better administration of Justice in His Majesty's Privy Council. The preamble refers to 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 92 ("transferring the powers of the High Court of Delegates in ecclesiastical and maritime causes, to His Majesty in Council"), 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 ("the submission of the clergy and restraint of appeals"), and 8 Eliz. c. 5 (permitting suit to the Crown in Council), and enacts that (the President of the Privy Council, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Chief Justices of King's Bench and Common Pleas, Master of the Rolls, Vice-chancellor, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, etc., together with all members of the Council who have filled these offices, together with any two other privy councillors specially appointed) shall form a Committee and shall be styled "The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council" to hear and report to the Crown on all appeals (to the Crown in Council). II., III. Appeals shall lie from Ecclesiastical Courts, Admiralty Courts abroad, and Courts "in the plantations in America" or elsewhere, together with any appeals as either by this Act or by previous Statute or custom |