Metropolitan Board of Works

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Metropolitan Board of Works

The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
-wide government from 1855 until the establishment of the London County Council

London County Council

London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889-1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected....
in 1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to cope with London's rapid growth, which it successfully accomplished. The MBW was an appointed rather than elected body. This lack of accountability made it unpopular with Londoners, especially in its latter years when it fell prey to corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption....
.

Background
London's growth had rapidly accelerated with the increase in railway commuting from the 1830s onwards.

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Encyclopedia

The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of London

London

London County Council

Political corruption

Background

London's growth had rapidly accelerated with the increase in railway commuting from the 1830s onwards. However London's local government was chaotic, with hundreds of specialist authorities (few of them elected) representing parts of streets. All had to agree in order to provide services which crossed their boundaries.

In 1835 elected municipal borough

Municipal borough

Municipal boroughs were a type of local government which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002....
s had been set up covering every major city except London. The City of London

City of London

The City of London is a geographically small city status in the United Kingdom within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which, along with Westminster, the modern conurbation grew....
, only the very core of the sprawling metropolis, was untouched by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835

Municipal Corporations Act 1835

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 - sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales....
and resisted all moves to expand its borders to include the poorer inner-city districts surrounding it. This meant that three counties had authority over the metropolitan area: Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex , from the Old English Middelseaxe , is one of the 39 Historic counties of England of England and the List of counties of England by area in 1831....
covered the area north of the Thames and west of the River Lee

River Lee (England)

The River Lee or River Lea in England originates in Leagrave Park , Leagrave, Luton in the Chiltern Hills and flows generally southeast, east, and then south to London where it meets the River Thames , the last section being known as Bow Creek....
, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a counties of England in the South East England of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, and Berkshire....
the area to the south and south-west, and Kent

Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
the far south east.

In 1837 an attempt was made to set up a London-wide elected authority, however the wealthier districts of Marylebone

Marylebone

Westminster

Westminster is an area of Central London, within the City of Westminster. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross....
resisted this and ultimately defeated the move. In 1854 it was proposed to divide London in to seven boroughs, each represented on a Metropolitan Board of Works. The proposal to divide the city into boroughs was abandoned but the board of works was set up in 1855.

Creation

In order to have a local body to coordinate local work to plan London, Parliament passed the Metropolis Management Act 1855

Metropolis Management Act 1855

The Metropolis Management Act 1855 created the Metropolitan Board of Works, a London-wide body to co-ordinate the construction of the city's infrastructure....
which created the Metropolitan Board of Works (which also took over the responsibilities of the short-lived Metropolitan Buildings Office

Metropolitan Buildings Office

The Metropolitan Buildings Office was formed in 1845 to regulate the construction and use of buildings in the metropolitan area of London. Surveyors were empowered to enforce building regulations which sought to improve the standard of houses and business premises, and to regulate activities that might threaten public health....
and Metropolitan Commission of Sewers

Metropolitan Commission of Sewers

The Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was one of London's first steps towards bringing its sewer and drainage infrastructure under the control of a single public body....
, established in 1845 and 1848 respectively). It was not to be a directly elected body, but instead to consist of members nominated by the vestries

Vestry

A vestry is a storage room in or attached to a Church or synagogue. A vestry is also an administrative committee of a church....
who were the principal local authorities. The larger vestries had two members and the City of London had three. In a few areas the vestries covered too small an area, and here they were merged into a district board for the purpose of nominating members to the MBW. There were 45 members, who would then elect a Chairman who was to become a member ex officio. The first nominations took place in December and the Board met first on December 22, 1855 where John Thwaites

John Thwaites (British politician)

Sir John Thwaites Farther of Andy was a United Kingdom politician who was the first Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works and therefore the first Leader of local government in London....
was elected as Chairman.

Activities

Metropolitan Board of Works in Spring Gardens 1860 Iln

Sewage

A major problem was sewage: most of London's waste was allowed to flow into the Thames resulting in a horrendous smell in the summer months. In 1855 and 1858 there were especially bad summers with the latter being known as "The Great Stink

The Great Stink

The Great Stink or The Big Stink was a time in the summer of 1858 during which the smell of untreated sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England....
". A notable achievement of the Board was the creation of the core London sewerage system

London sewerage system

The London sewerage system is part of the water infrastructure serving London. The modern roots of the system were first developed during the late 19th century, but as London has grown the system has been expanded and needs further investment....
, including 75 miles (120 km) of main and 1000 miles (1650 km) of street sewers, which solved the problem. A large part of the work of the MBW was under the charge of the Chief Engineer, Joseph Bazalgette

Joseph Bazalgette

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette was one of the great England civil engineers of the Victorian era. As the chief engineer of London Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of a London sewerage system, which helped relieve the city from cholera epidemics, while beginning the clean-up of the Thames, which had reached a...
, previously engineer with the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.

Streets and bridges

Its other activities included slum

Slum

A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security....
clearance, and the driving through of new streets to relieve traffic congestion. The most important streets built were Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road is a London street which runs immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles' Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road....
, Garrick Street, Northumberland Avenue

Northumberland Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue

Southwark Street

Southwark Street is a major street in the London Borough of Southwark, London SE1, just south of the River Thames. It runs between Blackfriars Road to the west and Borough High Street to the east....
. From 1869 onwards the MBW acquired all the private bridges crossing the River Thames

River Thames

The Thames is a major river flowing through southern England. While best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows through several other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading, Berkshire and Windsor, Berkshire....
and freed them of tolls. It also rebuilt Putney Bridge

Putney Bridge

Putney Bridge is a bridge crossing of the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north....
, Battersea Bridge

Battersea Bridge

Battersea Bridge is a road bridge crossing of the River Thames in south-west London, linking Battersea south of the river with Chelsea, London to the north....
, Waterloo Bridge

Waterloo Bridge

Waterloo Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge....
and Hammersmith Bridge

Hammersmith Bridge

Hammersmith Bridge is a crossing of the River Thames in west London, just south of the Hammersmith town centre area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the north side of the river....
. The Board wanted to build a new bridge to the east of London Bridge

London Bridge

London Bridge is a bridge between the City of London and Southwark in London, England, over the River Thames. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London....
, which had been discussed for many years; in 1878 Bazalgette drew up plans which were estimated at costing £1.25 million. Despite the Treasury refusing to help by extending the coal and wine dues which paid for the Board, it went ahead with the plans, but saw its Private Bill

Private bill

A private bill is an act considered or acted upon by a legislature that helps a single individual, group of individuals, or corporate entity, by affording relief from another law, granting a unique benefit, or relieving the individual from legal responsibility for some allegedly wrongful act....
rejected by the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the British monarchy and the House of Lords ....
.

Embankment

The Board also created the three section Thames Embankment

Thames Embankment

The Thames Embankment is a major feat of 19th century civil engineering designed to reclaim marshy land next to the River Thames in central London....
from 1864.

Fire brigade

From 1865 the MBW became responsible for administering the Metropolitan Fire Brigade

London Fire Brigade

The London Fire Brigade is the statute Fire service in the UK for Greater London, England. It is run by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and is the third-largest fire service in the world with nearly 7,000 staff, of which 5,800 are operational firefighters and officers....

Organisation

The MBW at first had its meetings in the Guildhall of the City of London and its headquarters at Greek Street in Soho

Soho

Soho is an area in the centre of the West End of London of London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is an entertainment district which for much of the later part of the 20th century had a reputation for its sex shops as well as its night life and film industry....
. It then built its own headquarters at Spring Gardens, (which became a metonym

Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept....
for the MBW), designed by its first chief architect

Architect

An architect is trained and licenced in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e....
Frederick Marrable

Frederick Marrable

Frederick Marrable was a United Kingdom Architecture who was notable as the first Chief Architect for the Metropolitan Board of Works, responsible for designing its headquarters....
and built in an Italianate style in 1859. When John Thwaites died (August 8, 1870), he was eventually replaced by James Macnaghten Hogg, later Lord Magheramorne, who remained Chairman until the MBW was abolished. There was an increase in the membership to 59 in 1885 when some district boards were divided and others were given more members.

Scandals

However the MBW had very little affection from the people of London. Its status as a joint board

Local government in the United Kingdom

The pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved English parliament....
insulated its members from any influence of popular opinion, though all property-owners had to pay for its work as part of their local government rates

Rates (tax)

Rates are a type of taxation system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, used to fund local government....
. Worse, the very many building contracts issued by the MBW made membership of it desirable for anyone wishing to bid for them. The MBW took most of its decisions in secret. There were a succession of corruption scandals in the late 1880s, which led to a Royal Commission

Royal Commission

In states that are Commonwealth Realms a Royal Commission is a major government public inquiry into an issue. They have been held in states such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia....
investigation. By this time, the public had dubbed the MBW as the "Metropolitan Board of Perks".

The essence of the scandal arose from the purchase by the MBW of the old Pavilion

London Pavilion

The London Pavilion is a building located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of, and facing, Piccadilly Circus in London....
music hall

Music hall

Music hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to# A particular form of variety show entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and #Speciality Acts....
in Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus is a famous junction and public space of London's West End of London in the City of Westminster,built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly....
in 1879, when the site was thought necessary for the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue

Shaftesbury Avenue is a major street in London, England, named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, that runs in a north-easterly direction from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus, London....
. As the street was still in the early stage, the site was leased to music hall proprietor R.E. Villiers for the time being. In addition to his regular payment to the Board, Villiers paid a small sub rosa amount to F.W. Goddard, who was Chief Valuer for the Board, for favorable treatment.

In 1883, it seemed likely that demolition of the site for road construction was likely to take place, and Villiers met with Goddard and Thomas James Robertson (Assistant Surveyor) to ensure that the remainder of the site was granted to him for a new Pavilion. They agreed to help him, in return for one corner of the site being a public house under the landlordship of W.W. Grey. Grey was in fact the brother of Robertson, though this was of course not immediately apparent.

In November 1884 Robertson told Villiers that the time had come to make a formal offer to the MBW to lease the site, and Villiers duly offered £2,700 ground rent per annum. The Board instructed its superintending architect, George Vulliamy, to value the site: however, Vulliamy was old and left practically all of the work to his subordinates – Goddard and Robertson (it was said by the Deputy Chairman of the Board that "Mr. Goddard and Mr. Robertson were Mr. Vulliamy"). They prepared a report valuing the site at £3,000 per annum, which Villiers immediately accepted; this was then hurriedly pushed through the Board which agreed the lease despite a higher offer of £4,000.

The site was leased off in two portions, £2,650 for the largest part, and £350 for the western corner of the site. Goddard continued to collect his extra payments from Villiers, and the western corner was transferred to Grey – who sold his existing public house on Tichborn Street and divided the £10,000 profit between Goddard and Robertson. In December 1886, Villiers sold the Pavilion, and Goddard received a total of £5,000 of the proceeds.

Subsidiary corruption

For years, vague hints had been made that the Board tended to encourage those applying for leases to employ members of the Board as architects. In particular, James Ebenezer Saunders had been appointed as chief architect on the Pavilion, and on the Grand Hotel and Metropole Hotel on Northumberland Avenue

Northumberland Avenue

Northumberland Avenue is a London street, running from Trafalgar Square in the west to The Thames Embankment in the east. The avenue was built on the site of Northumberland House, the London home of the Percy family, the Duke of Northumberland....
, both on land owned by the Board, and had done little actual work. Francis Hayman Fowler, although he had done much other work as a Board member, had taken money from site owners and lessees in circumstances which clearly indicated bribery.

On a more base level, the Assistant Architect at the Board, John Hebb, had responsibility for inspecting theatres for safety. He began to write to the managers of theatres with upcoming inspections to suggest that they might want to send him free tickets. Given the power of the board to close theatres, most complied. However, displeased by the inspections themselves, and by the attempt to extract gifts, the managers tended to send Hebb tickets for seats that were at the back of the house or hidden behind a pillar.

Royal Commission

The Goddard-Robertson scandal was revealed by a series of articles in the Financial News
Financial News

The Financial News, is a financial newspaper and news website published in London. It is a weekly investment banking, fund management and securities industries newspaper, published by eFinancial News Limited....
beginning on October 25, 1886. The Board itself undertook an incompetent investigation under the Chairmanship of Magheramorne, which found Robertson was "injudicious in allowing relatives to become tenants of the Board without informing the Board" but could not find anything worthy "of more severe censure". Anti-Board campaigners were not pleased and kept up the pressure. On the motion of Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill was a United Kingdom statesman.Lord Randolph was the third son of the John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest , daughter of the Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry....
(who represented Paddington South

Paddington South (UK Parliament constituency)

Paddington South was a Parliamentary constituency in London which returned one Member of Parliament. It was a compact urban area, but predominantly wealthy, and was most famously represented by Lord Randolph Churchill during the latter part of his career....
where anti-Board feeling was at its highest), the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the British monarchy and the House of Lords ....
voted on February 16, 1888 to establish a Royal Commission to inquire into the Board.

The Commission was headed by Lord Herschell

Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell

Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell Order of the Bath Queen's Counsel was Lord Chancellor of Great Britain in 1886, and again from 1892 to 1895....
and found the main allegations of the Financial News to have been correct, and indeed understated. Some other scandals were also discovered including the corruption of architects who were members of the Board. However, the Commission repudiated the view of critics that corruption was endemic in the Board.

While the Royal Commission was still preparing its hearings, the President of the Local Government Board

President of the Local Government Board

The President of the Local Government Board was a ministerial post, frequently a Cabinet position, in the United Kingdom, established in 1871. The Local Government Board itself was established in 1871 and took over supervisory functions from the Board of Trade and the Home Office, including the Local Government Act Office that had been esta...
Charles Ritchie announced that elected County Councils

County council

A County council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries....
were to be created throughout the United Kingdom. Almost hidden in the Bill were clauses that separated the area of the MBW from the counties of Surrey

Surrey

Middlesex

Middlesex , from the Old English Middelseaxe , is one of the 39 Historic counties of England of England and the List of counties of England by area in 1831....
and Kent

Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
and created it as the County of London. This decision was in general what the anti-Board campaigners of the London Municipal Reform League

London Municipal Reform League

The London Municipal Reform League was one of the political parties operating in the Metropolitan Board of Works, formed in 1882 by John Lloyd, having a Liberal Party outlook....
had called for.

Abolition

The Metropolitan Board of Works was abolished by the Local Government Act 1888

Local Government Act 1888

The Local Government Act 1888 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales....
; and the London County Council had been elected on 21 January 1889, to assume its new powers on 1 April. With the MBW a lame duck, its last weeks were its most inglorious period. The LCC were due to assume financial responsibility; and the MBW began to award large pensions to the retiring officers and large salaries to those who would transfer. The MBW then decided to allow the Samaritan Hospital in Marylebone

Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent, inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It can be pronounced as Marribun or Mar-lee-bone Marylebone is in an area of London that can be roughly defined as the area bounded by Oxford Street to the south, Marylebone Road to the north, Edgware Road to the west and Portland Place to...
to use an additional 12 feet of pavement, which the LCC opposed. The LCC wrote to the MBW asking it not to take the decision; the MBW did not reply and gave the permission.

Finally, the MBW received the tenders for the Blackwall Tunnel

Blackwall Tunnel

The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the London Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road....
and decided to take a decision to award the contract at its final meeting. The LCC again wrote asking the MBW to leave the decision to them. The Chairman of the MBW replied (18 March 1889) that it intended to continue. At this the LCC decided to appeal to the Government which exercised its power to abolish the MBW and bring the LCC into existence on 21 March 1889.

The magazine Punch printed a cartoon to mark the abolition of the MBW entitled 'Peace to its Hashes', representing the MBW by a black suit of armour (ie blackmail

Blackmail

Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal Substantial truth information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand made upon the victim is met....
). The citation lauded the MBW for showing 'how jobbery may be elevated to the level of the fine arts'.

The MBW's headquarters were taken over by the London County Council as its headquarters until County Hall

County Hall, London

County Hall is a building in Lambeth, London, that was the headquarters of London County Council and later the Greater London Council . The building is on the bank of the River Thames, just north of Westminster Bridge, facing west toward the City of Westminster, and close to the Palace of Westminster....
was built and occupied in 1922; the building was then renamed 'Old County Hall' and continued as a subsidiary office for the LCC until the original hundred-year lease on the site expired in 1958. It was subsequently used for central government offices and demolished in 1971 to make way for a new headquarters for the British Council

British Council

The British Council is a Quango based in the United Kingdom which specialises in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is a non-departmental public body, a public corporation incorporated by royal charter, and is registered as a charity in England....
. The site is adjacent to Admiralty Arch

Admiralty Arch

Admiralty Arch is a large office building in London which incorporates an archway providing road and pedestrian access between The Mall , which extends to the southwest, and Trafalgar Square to the northeast....
, off The Mall

The Mall (London)

The Mall in London is the road running from Buckingham Palace at its western end to Admiralty Arch and on to Trafalgar Square at its eastern end, where it crosses Spring Gardens, which was where the Metropolitan Board of Works and, for a number of years, the London County Council were based....
.

Chairmen of the Metropolitan Board of Works

Sir John Thwaites
John Thwaites (British politician)

Sir John Thwaites Farther of Andy was a United Kingdom politician who was the first Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works and therefore the first Leader of local government in London....
1855-1870
James Macnaghten Hogg 1870-1889