The Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London was a royal commission which considered the means for amalgamating the ancient City of London with the County of London, which had been created in 1889. The commission reported in 1894. The government headed by Lord Rosebery accepted the recommendations of the commission, but when a Conservative government under Lord Salisbury came to power in 1895 the reforms were almost entirely abandoned.
Background
The administration of the metropolitan area of London, and the possible reform of the ancient City of London had been prominent political topics since the 1830s. Recommendations by royal commissions given in 1837, 1854 and 1867 had largely been left unimplemented. The Local Government Act 1888 had set up a County of London which surrounded, but did not include, the square mile and main business district of the City of London. London was therefore governed by the Corporation of London at its core and the London County Council for its metropolitan area.
When the first London County Council was elected, the Progressive Party, closely allied to the parliamentary Liberals, took control. The first chairman of the LCC, Lord Rosebery, was strongly in favour of the unification of the city and county. Campaigning for the second county council elections in 1892, he set out the position of the Progressives:
The present arrangement by which a comparatively small district in the centre of London is detached from London and held aloof cannot be maintained. The object of parliament and of reformers must be that the city should be united with London as soon as possible and with as little friction as possible. Of all London reforms I lay infinitely the most stress on this, because each can supply what the other lacks, because so many reforms are contingent on it, and because you cannot have a complete municipality without it.
The Progressives increased their majority at the elections, and in November 1892 the council passed five resolutions seeking legislation to give the authority increased powers. It was resolved inter alia to seek: The unification of London, by the removal of the division of the jurisdiction between city and county, which now hampers every reform, but especially the great questions of the public services, such as water, gas, markets &c.
The Liberal Party gained control of parliament at the general election in July of that year, and in February 1893 the Government announced that a royal commission would be appointed to formulate a scheme for the unification of London. The President of the Local Government Board, H. H. Fowler, told the Commons that the commission was to have five members, of which one each were to represent the views of the city and the county council respectively. Accordingly, he wrote to both bodies in March suggesting the names of individuals who might be acceptable. The process was drawn out as the city was reluctant to cooperate.
Membership and terms of reference
The royal commission was appointed on 27 March 1893, the members being: Leonard Henry Courtney, (chairman) Liberal Unionist member of parliament for Bodmin, who had held a number of junior ministerial posts in the Second Gladstone Ministry. Sir Thomas Henry Farrer, Bt., London County Council alderman, former deputy chairman of the LCC and member of the Progressive grouping. He was elevated to the peerage as Baron Farrer later in 1893. Robert Durning Holt, Mayor of Liverpool. In August 1893 he became the city's first Lord Mayor Henry Homewood Crawford, Solicitor to the Corporation of the City of London Edward Orford Smith, Town Clerk of Birmingham. Smith had led the campaign to obtain city status for Birmingham in 1889.
The secretary to the commission was George Edward Yorke Gleadowe.
The terms of reference were: ..to consider the proper conditions under which the amalgamation of the City and County of London can be effected, and to make specific and practical proposals for that purpose. The commission's quorum was set at three members, and it was given full power to call witnesses and examine books, documents, registers and records. They were also permitted to visit and personally inspect any place in the United Kingdom that they deemed expedient.