1889 North Riding County Council election

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

North Riding (red) within Yorkshire (green) and England
Inaugural chairman, J. C. Dundas

The inaugural elections to the North Riding County Council were held on 24 January 1889. The North Riding was one of three divisions of the historic county of Yorkshire in England; it consisted of the ancient wapentakes (or hundreds) of Gilling West, Hang West, Gilling East, Hang East, Allertonshire, Halikeld, Langbaurgh West, Birdforth, Bulmer, Ryedale, Langbaurgh East, Whitby Strand and Pickering Lythe. The new council consisted of 60 members (one for each of 60 divisions), with 20 more voting aldermen to be elected by the new council. 31 of the seats were contested while 29 were uncontested. The election saw control of the council being taken by Conservative candidates, although these candidates were largely Independent conservatives as opposed to being party activists.

Following the election, the first Chairman of the Council was John Dundas, who remained in office until 1892.

The Local Government Act 1888 created county councils throughout England and Wales, to take over various administrative functions until then carried out by the unelected Quarter Sessions. They gained some of their powers under the Act on 1 April 1889, and their full powers on 22 September 1889. These included repairing county roads and bridges; maintaining court houses, police stations, and county halls; providing an asylum for pauper lunatics and reformatory and industrial schools; and being responsible for weights and measures and the control of contagious diseases in animals.[1] The areas they covered were called administrative counties and were not in all cases identical to the traditional counties, but in the North Riding the whole county came under the authority of the new county council, as there were no towns or cities large enough to be treated as county boroughs (although there were in the West and East Ridings).

Results

Results by division

References

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI