Note (Back) — Chapter VIII

188. The New Poor Law (1834) and the Municipal Corporations Act (1835).—The reforms accomplished since 1832 within the domain of parliamentary organization and procedure have been hardly more remarkable than those wrought during the same period within the field of local government. It must suffice to mention but the principal steps by which the local governing system has been brought to its present high degree of democracy and effectiveness. Among the subjects to which the first reformed parliament addressed its attention was the direful condition into which had fallen the relief of the poor, and the initial stage of local government regeneration was marked by the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, abolishing outdoor relief for the able-bodied, providing for the regrouping of parishes in "poor-law unions," and establishing a national Poor Law Commission. The administration of relief within the unions was intrusted all but exclusively to newly created boards of guardians, composed in part of the justices of the peace sitting ex-officio and in part of members specially elected by the rate-payers. The arrangements set up by the act proved very successful and they survive almost intact at the present day. The second notable change was that effected by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. The enfranchising of large numbers of the townspeople in 1832 led inevitably to demand for the democratization of the aristocratic borough governments, and within three years the demand was met in a statute so sweeping as to justify the assertion that with its enactment the modern history of the English town begins.[254] Sixty-nine of the old corporate towns, by reason of their unimportance, were now deprived of the character of boroughs. The city of London was not touched, but elsewhere all municipal corporations were broadened so as to personify legally the entire population of the borough. The time-honored municipal oligarchy was broken down by the giving of the franchise to all rate-payers, the town councils were made wholly elective, trading monopolies and privileges were swept away, and a variety of other reforms were introduced. With the adoption of this important measure, however, the work of reform came for a time to a halt, and the widely assailed system of county government through nominated magistrates in quarter sessions survived until 1888.[255]