Place:Greater London, England

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the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Greater London is an administrative area, ceremonial county and the London region of England. It was created as an area for local government on 1 April 1965, comprising the City of London and 32 London boroughs, of which twelve are Inner London boroughs and twenty are Outer London boroughs. The ceremonial county created at the same time, and used for the purposes of the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London, does not include the City of London. The Greater London Authority consisting of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly, headquartered in City Hall, has been responsible for strategic local government since 2000. Greater London occupies the same area as the London European Parliament constituency. It is at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes, covers and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. It has by far the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom. The term Greater London was in use before 1965 to refer to a variously defined area, larger than the County of London and often similar to the Metropolitan Police District.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

London is divided into the small City of London and the much wider Greater London. This arrangement has come about because as the area of London grew and absorbed neighbouring settlements, a series of administrative reforms did not amalgamate the City of London with the metropolitan area, and its unique political structure was retained. Outside the limited boundaries of the old city, a variety of arrangements have governed the wider area since 1855, culminating with the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965.

The term Greater London was used well before 1965, particularly to refer to the area covered by the Metropolitan Police District (such as in the 1901 census), the area of the Metropolitan Water Board (favoured by the London County Council for statistics), the London Passenger Transport Area and the area defined by the Registrar General as the Greater London Conurbation. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916. One of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied and included 9 million people.^[1]

Proposals to expand the County of London

Although the London County Council had been created as a London-wide authority covering the County of London in 1889, the county did not cover all the built-up area of London, particularly West Ham and East Ham; and many of the LCC housing projects, including the vast Becontree Estates, were outside its boundaries. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan and City Police Districts there were 122 housing authorities. A Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. London County Council proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a proposed boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties. Protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCC's scheme. Two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a Central Authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission. Reform of the local government arrangements in the County of London and its environs was again considered by the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London. The commission applied three tests to decide if a community should form part of Greater London. They were: how strong is the area as an independent centre in its own right; how strong are its ties to London; and how strongly is it drawn outwards towards the country rather than inwards towards London.

Greater London is formally created

Greater London was formally created by the London Government Act 1963, which took force on 1 April 1965, replacing the former administrative counties of Middlesex and London, adding the City of London, which was not under the London County Council, and absorbing parts of Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council (GLC) sharing power with the City of London Corporation (governing the small City of London) and the 32 London borough councils. The Greater London Council was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985. Its functions were devolved to the Corporation and the London boroughs with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards.

Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994. A referendum held in 1998, established public will to create a strategic authority for Greater London. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999. In 2000 the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were both won by Ken Livingstone, who had been the final leader of the GLC. The 2008 and 2012 elections were both won by Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party candidate.

Research Tips

A very useful FREE site for anyone researching their London ancestors between the years 1690-1800 is London Lives. A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names. [1]