County of London

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County of London

[luhn-duhn]

The County of London was a ceremonial county and administrative county of England from 1889 to 1965. It bordered Middlesex to the north and west, Essex to the north east, Kent to the south east and Surrey to the south. It was governed by the London County Council and corresponded to the area today known as Inner London.

Creation

Although the county was constituted in 1889 by the Local Government Act 1888, the territory of the county was first established in 1855 by the Metropolis Management Act 1855. The area had been known until then as 'the metropolis' and was under the control of a range of parishes and vestries who nominated members to the Metropolitan Board of Works; with responsibility for London's roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

In addition to being an administrative county with a county council, the 1888 Act also provided that "such portion of the administrative county of London as forms part of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, shall [...] be severed from those counties, and form a separate county for all non-administrative purposes by the name of the county of London".

The county was created as part of the general introduction of county councils and was governed by the London County Council. It did not cover all of today's Greater London, but only the inner part. It covered parts of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent - corresponding to today's London Boroughs of Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster.

The county did not include the City of London. A Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London was set up to explore the means of amalgamation of the two entities, but was unsuccessful in effecting the change.

Metropolitan boroughs

In 1900, eleven years after its foundation, the London Government Act divided the County of London into 28 metropolitan boroughs. These replaced the ancient parish vestries and district boards as the second tier of local government. When the County of London was abolished in 1965 these metropolitan boroughs were merged to form 12 London boroughs.

County of London boroughs numbered in the information box on the right side:

City of London (not a metropolitan borough)

Geography

The county occupied an area of just under . It was divided into two parts (north and south) by the River Thames, which was the most significant geographic feature. The highest point was Hampstead Heath in the north of the county at , which remains one of the highest points in London.

Demography

The county had a declining population throughout its life. In 1901 the population was 4.5 million and by 1961 it had fallen to 3.2 million. Following the 1931 census more of the population of "Greater London" (defined at the time as the Metropolitan Police District and City of London) lived outside the county than in it. The following table illustrates the approximate population according to the census at various intervals:

Year	Central Area†	Inner Ring‡	Second Ring§	County of London Total	Outer Ring# of Greater London
1881	1,743,000	1,008,000	1,093,000	3,844,000	950,000
1901	1,623,000	1,201,000	1,601,000	4,425,000	1,422,000
1921	1,364,000	1,186,000	1,933,000	4,483,000	2,993,000
1931	1,260,000	1,163,000	1,976,000	4,399,000	3,807,000
1951	738,000	927,000	1,683,000	3,348,000	4,998,000

†The City of London and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Finsbury, Holborn, St Marylebone, St Pancras, Shoreditch, Southwark, Stepney and Westminster.

‡The Metropolitan Boroughs of Battersea, Chelsea, Islington, Kensington, Lambeth and Paddington.

§The Metropolitan Boroughs of Camberwell, Deptford, Fulham, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Lewisham, Poplar, Stoke Newington, Wandsworth and Woolwich.

#Defined as the area of the Metropolitan Police district outside the County of London.

Abolition

The county was abolished in 1965 and was replaced by the much larger Greater London, which took in nearly all of Middlesex, along with areas previously in Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire.

Since the Greater London Council was not an education authority, but London County Council had been, an Inner London Education Authority was constituted to continue this role for the area of the old County of London, and this continued until 1990.