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The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888. The 1894 legislation introduced elected councils at district and parish level. The principal effects of the act were: *The creation a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils. These along, with the town councils of municipal boroughs created earlier in the century, formed a second tier of local government below the existing county councils. *The establishment of elected parish councils in rural areas. *The reform of the boards of guardians of poor law unions. *The entitlement of women who owned property to vote in local elections, become poor law guardians, and act on school boards. The new district councils were based on the existing urban and rural sanitary districts. Many of the latter had lain in more than one ancient county, whereas the new rural districts were to be in a single administrative county. The act also reorganised civil parishes, so that none of them lay in more than one district and hence didn't cross administrative boundaries. Although the Act made no provision to abolish the Hundreds, which had previously been the only widely used administrative unit between the parish and the county in size,〔(Mapping the Hundreds of England and Wales in GIS ) University of Cambridge Department of Geography, published 06-06-08, accessed 2011-10-12〕 the reorganisation displaced their remaining functions. Several ancient hundred names lived on in the names of the districts that superseded them. ==Background== The Local Government Act 1888 had introduced elected county councils. The passing of the act had been part of the price for Liberal Unionist support for Lord Salisbury's minority Conservative administration. An innovation in the act was the fact that all electors had a single vote, and thus county councillors were popularly elected. The members of other local bodies were elected by a system of weighted voting, with those owning more property having multiple votes. The original Local Government Bill of 1888 had included provisions for creating district as well as county councils. However the President of the Local Government Board, Charles Ritchie, had some difficulty in having the legislation passed by parliament, and dropped the district council clauses for fear that the entire bill might be lost due to opposition from the government's own backbenchers.〔(J P D Dunbabin, ''British Local Government Reform: The Nineteenth Century and after'' in ''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 92, No. 365. (Oct., 1977), pp. 777-805. )〕 The Liberal opposition berated the government for failing to create district councils. At the same time they put forward proposals for establishing councils at parish level. John Morley, MP for Newcastle, told a meeting in Reading: "The Tories cannot conceal from themselves the fact that all over the land - in the towns, in the villages, in the country districts, in the urban districts - there is a resolute determination that Parliament shall put its hand in earnest to the great work of social regeneration ... parish councils may sound dull and mechanical, we know that they will go to the very root of national life, and that when we have achieved these reforms a freer voice will be given to the community than it has ever had before. New depths of life will have been stirred in the most neglected portions of our community, and we shall find among the labourers of the fields, as we have found among the artisans of the towns, a resolution that the condition of our people shall, so far as laws can better it, be bettered ..." The Earl of Kimberley explained to a meeting in Walworth that the party wanted to create: ".. a complete hierarchy of councils popularly elected and with full powers belonging to such bodies." The Liberals tried to amend the Agricultural Smallholdings Act 1892 as it passed through parliament, seeking to add clauses creating parish councils which would have the power to buy and sell land in order to increase the number of smallholdings. In rejecting the amendments, Henry Chaplin, President of the Board of Agriculture, claimed the government intended: "... on a proper and fitting occasion, when opportunity arises, to deal not only with the question of District Councils, but the question also of parochial reform. " Parliament was dissolved in June 1892, and a general election called. The Liberals made the introduction of district and parish councils part of their programme. Following the election the Liberals under William Ewart Gladstone formed an administration with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Local Government Bill (also referred to as the Parish Councils Bill) was published by H H Fowler, the President of the Local Government Board, on 26 March 1893. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Local Government Act 1894」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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