Borough council

“ Until very recently, when a Reform party gradually got into being and increased steadily—though it's still in a minority—the whole representation and administration of the borough was hopelessly bad and unprincipled. For what do you suppose men went into the Town Council? To represent the ratepayer, the townspeople? No, but to look after their own interests; to safeguard themselves; to get what they could out of it: the whole policy of the old councils was one of—there's only one word for it, Mr. Brent, and that's only just becoming Anglicized—Graft! ”

“ The governing body in a borough is the council elected by the burgesses.
The qualification of a burgess has been incidentally mentioned in connexion with that of a county elector, and need not be further noticed. A borough councillor must be qualified in the same manner as a county councillor, and he is disqualified in the same way, with this addition, that a peer or ownership voter is not qualified as such, and that a person is disqualified for being a borough councillor if he is in holy orders or is the regular minister of a Dissenting congregation. ”

“ The borough was governed by two bailiffs, both elected at the court leet of the lord of the manor, one by his steward, the other by a borough jury, but in the beginning of the 19th century there were only seventy-two burgesses and their rights seem to have gradually disappeared. An urban district council was formed in 1900. Wem has never been represented in parliament. ”

“ The Rural Parish Councils, which were created in 1894, and which represented a reversion by the Liberal Party to the older type of democratic thought, have been a failure, and will either be abolished or will remain ineffective, because no real administrative powers will be given to them. But if we omit the rural districts, the inhabitant of a 'county borough' will soon vote only for parliament and his borough council, while the inhabitant of London or of an urban district or non-county borough will only vote for parliament, his county, and his district or borough council. ”

“ It was incorporated by Henry II., in 1160; and the privileges and free customs granted by this and subsequent royal grants were confirmed by Charter of 36th Charles II. The body corporate consists of a mayor, recorder, seven aldermen, and seventeen capital burgesses, who, together, form the common council of the borough. The mayor, two town-bailiffs, and two sergeants are elected annually, upon the Friday preceding the festival of St. Wilfrid, who was formerly lord of this town; and they are invested, on the 12th of October following, by a jury of twenty-four guild burgesses. ”

“ In all the municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council was to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. The exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character, was placed under the control of the council. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A borough was run by a mayor elected usually for life. By being members of a guild, merchant-traders and craftsmen acquired the legal status of burgesses and had the freedom of the borough. Each guild occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman. The town aldermen made up the town council, which advised the mayor. ”

“ The site of its gardens is occupied by Deptford Park of 11 acres. Another open space is Telegraph Hill (91⁄2 acres) . The parliamentary borough of Deptford returns one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 36 councillors. Area, 1562.7 acres.
DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune) , one appointed to act or govern instead of another; one who exercises an office in another man’s right, a substitute; in representative government a member of an elected chamber. ”

“ After the election of these deputies by the aldermen and common council, they gave sureties for their attendance before the king and parliament: their charges were respectively borne by the borough which sent them; and they had so little idea of appearing as legislators,—a character extremely wide of their low rank and condition, [**] —that no intelligence could be more disagreeable to any borough, than to find that they must elect, or to any individual than that he was elected, to a trust from which no profit or honor could possibly be derived. ”

“ The general council is composed of all these officers, of representatives from the divisions, polling districts and clubs, and in addition, of all men who pay one guinea a year—another instance of giving special privileges to the larger subscribers. The executive for the borough, styled the Finance and General Purposes Committee, consists of thirty members elected by the council ”

“ The only bodies in any analogous position which exist, or are likely to exist, in this country, are the municipalities, or any other boards which have been or may be created for similar local purposes. Few persons, however, would think it any improvement in our Parliamentary constitution if the members for the City of London were chosen by the aldermen and Common Council, and those for the borough of Marylebone avowedly, as they already are virtually, by the vestries of the component parishes. ”

“ His term of office is one year, but he is eligible for re-election. He may appoint a deputy to act during illness or absence, and such deputy must be either an alderman or councillor. A mayor who is absent from the borough for more than two months becomes disqualified and vacates his office. A mayor is ex officio during his year of office and the next year a justice of the peace for the borough. He receives such remuneration as the council thinks reasonable. The office of mayor in an English borough does not entail any important administrative duties. ”

“ It is a time when suburbs and quarters, invidiously distinguished from one another in the social scale, have established themselves; when, in short, from being just the resort of a class, a place becomes a microcosm of life, in which all classes and degrees are represented. The seal was set upon the arrival of that time for Bournemouth with its admission to the dignity of a municipal borough, fully equipped with Mayor and Town Council, in the summer of 1890, and again, later, with the opening of electric tramways. ”

“ Charles II. from the time of his restoration decided to exercise a strict control of the close corporations in order to secure not only submissive parliaments, but also a pliant executive among the borough justices, and pliant juries, which were impanelled at the selection of the borough officers. In 1660 it was made a rule that all future charters should reserve expressly to the crown the first nomination of the aldermen, recorder and town-clerk, and a proviso should be entered placing with the common council the return of the member of parliament. ”

“ Women, other than married women, are eligible. Borough councillors are elected for a term of three years, one-third of the whole number going out of office in each year, and if the borough is divided into wards, these are so arranged that the number of councillors for each ward shall be three or a multiple of three. ”

“ The Presidents of Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn Boroughs receive $7,500 a year; of Queens and Richmond Boroughs, $5,000. They are elected for four years, and each president has general oversight over streets, bridges, sewers, and buildings in his borough. He may appoint a commissioner of public works, and a superintendent of buildings for his borough, and local school boards. In Queens and Richmond the borough presidents have charge of street-cleaning.
The Board of Aldermen is the legislative body of the city. It consists of seventy-three men elected from Aldermanic districts. ”

“ There is nothing in England to-day with which we can compare the life of a fully enfranchised borough of the fifteenth century. Even the revival of our local institutions and our municipal ambition has scarcely stirred any memory of the great tradition of the past, of the large liberties, the high dignities and privileges which our towns claimed in days when the borough was in fact a free self-governing community, a state within the state, boasting of rights derived from immemorial custom and of later privileges assured by law. ”

“ Needless to say, they take good care to choose a man who is in thorough sympathy with their own ideas. Now the late mayor was convinced that this system led to nothing but—well, to put it mildly, to nothing but highly undesirable results. He claimed that the municipal government had the right to deprive the existing town trustees of their power, and to take into its own hands the full administration of the borough finances. ”

“ We do not, however, mean to allow that the remaining boroughs should be in the hands of a small number of persons to the exclusion of the great body of the inhabitants who have property and interest in the place. It is a point of great difficulty to decide to whom the franchise should be extended. Though it is a point much disputed, I believe it will be found that in ancient times every inhabitant householder resident in a borough was competent to vote for members of Parliament. ”

“ It was with that object that most of the boroughs which were first allowed to return members under the Tudors had been enfranchised, [222] a great noble or landholder, whose affection to the government could not be doubted, being often able to obtain the promotion of some village or petty town in the neighborhood of his estates to the dignity of a parliamentary borough, and thus acquiring a great addition to his political and social importance by his power of influencing the election. ”

“ While the bulk of them grew by simple increase of population from township to town, larger boroughs such as York with its "six shires" or London with its wards and sokes and franchises show how families and groups of settlers settled down side by side, and claimed as they coalesced, each for itself, its shire or share of the town-ground while jealously preserving its individual life within the town-community. But strange as these aggregations might be, the constitution of the borough which resulted from them was simply that of the people at large. ”

“ Towns were always trying to get out of the power of the overlords' reeve or the shire-reeve, and gradually many of them got the right of appointing their own reeve. That right was granted by charter, usually from the king. That is the beginning of our present borough towns. The mayor in them is the chief magistrate. In many country towns two different courts are often held in the same building: the Borough Sessions, at which the mayor presides, deal with offences done in the town; and County Sessions, at which magistrates from the country district round deal with offences outside the borough. ”

“ They are all boroughs, and possess a mayor and corporation of their own, each with a townhall to support the dignity. They have a certain amount to say in local affairs, the more important being under the control of the London County Council, who in turn hold themselves responsible to Parliament. ”

“ Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"—that is, to a jury of its own or its freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole body of its burghers—that is, of those who held land within its walls. ”

“ At the same time they raised various fundamental questions as to their rights, just as Lynn was doing almost in the very same year. They asked whether the town was not a royal borough and therefore in no way dependent on the abbey; whether the townsmen had not therefore a right to elect their own mayor; and whether that mayor ought not to exercise jurisdiction over the burgesses and commonalty “according to the custom of the borough and Guild”—questions which one and all afforded fair subjects of dispute for the next hundred and fifty years. ”

“ The new freeman in return for his privileges was bound to share with the other burgesses all the burdens of taxation, control, &c., which fell upon burgesses. Personal service was not always necessary, and in some towns there were many non-resident burgesses. When in later times admission to this freedom came to be used as means to secure the parliamentary franchise, the freedom of the borough was freely sold and given. The elections in which the commons of the boroughs first took interest were those of the borough magistrates. ”