Cheshire County Council

History

Cheshire County Council was created on 1 April 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, which established elected county councils across England and Wales to take over the local government functions previously performed by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. Certain large towns were made county boroughs, administering their own affairs independently from the county councils. When Cheshire County Council was established in 1889, three county boroughs were created in Cheshire: Birkenhead, Chester, and Stockport. The area of the county excluding these towns was known as the administrative county and was the area under the jurisdiction of Cheshire County Council. Wallasey was later made a county borough in 1913, removing it from the administrative county.

The first elections were held in January 1889 and the council formally came into being on 1 April 1889, on which day it held its first official meeting at Macclesfield Town Hall. There was a lengthy debate at that first meeting on where the council should hold its regular meetings, which concluded with a vote in favour of making Chester the regular meeting place. Despite that decision, the council subsequently used the Crewe Arms Hotel in Crewe for most meetings until 1957.

Under the Local Government Act 1972, Cheshire was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan county and had its boundaries revised, with an area in the north-east of the county (including Stockport) being transferred to Greater Manchester, the Wirral peninsula (including Birkenhead and Wallasey) being transferred to Merseyside and the eastern tip of the county at Upper Longdendale and Tintwistle being transferred to Derbyshire. In return, the county gained the area around Widnes and Warrington from Lancashire. County boroughs were abolished at the same time, and so the city of Chester came under the jurisdiction of the county council for the first time. The lower tier of local government was also reorganised, with the county's previous municipal boroughs, urban districts and rural districts being replaced by eight non-metropolitan districts. These changes all took effect on 1 April 1974.

On 1 April 1998, two of the county's districts, Halton and Warrington, became unitary authorities, making them independent from Cheshire County Council.

Cheshire County Council and its six remaining districts were abolished on 31 March 2009. From 1 April 2009 the area formed two unitary authorities, with Cheshire East covering the area of the former Congleton, Crewe and Nantwich and Macclesfield districts, and Cheshire West and Chester covering the area of the former Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston, and Vale Royal districts.

Premises

From 1889 until 1957 the county council met at the Crewe Arms Hotel in Crewe as a location conveniently accessible by railway to most of the county. Work began on building a new County Hall on Castle Drive in Chester in 1938, but work on the building was paused due to the Second World War, and it was not formally opened until 1957. After Cheshire County Council's abolition, County Hall was sold to the University of Chester.

Political control

From 1889 until 1970, elections to the county council were generally held every three years. As part of the reforms under the Local Government Act 1972, those councillors still in post in 1972 on the old county council had their terms of office extended to 31 March 1974. The first election to the reconstituted county council was held in 1973, initially operating as a shadow authority until the new arrangements came into effect on 1 April 1974. Elections were thereafter generally held every four years for the county council. The last election to Cheshire County Council was held in 2005. Voting for the new unitary authorities took place on 1 May 2008, which then acted as shadow authorities until formally taking over from the abolished county and district councils on 1 April 2009. Political control of Cheshire County Council from 1974 until its abolition in 2009 was as follows:

Leadership

The chairmen of the county council from 1889 until the 1974 reforms were:

• 1889–1893: Duncan Graham.
• 1893–1922: Col. Sir George Dixon, 1st Baronet, JP, DL.
• 1922–1935: Sir William Hodgson, JP.
• 1935–1940: Maj. Thomas Clayton Toler.
• 1940–1944: Joseph Cooke.
• 1944–1948: Maj. Hewitt Pearson Montague Beames, CBE.
• 1948–1951: Sir Edward Otho Glover.
• 1952–1967: Lt-Col. Sir John Wesley Emberton.
• 1968–1974: Sir Herbert John Salisbury Dewes, CBE, JP, DL.

The leaders of the council from 1974 until 2009 were:

Council elections

• 1973 Cheshire County Council election
• 1977 Cheshire County Council election
• 1981 Cheshire County Council election
• 1985 Cheshire County Council election
• 1989 Cheshire County Council election
• 1993 Cheshire County Council election
• 1997 Cheshire County Council election
• 2001 Cheshire County Council election
• 2005 Cheshire County Council election

Results maps

File:Cheshire divisions 2005.svg|2005 results map

By-election results

Alderman

Below is a list of people who were Aldermen of Cheshire County Council and when they were made an alderman.

• Vernon(???)

Notes

References

References

1. "Cheshire County Council". Cheshire Archives.
2. "Cheshire County Council". What do they know.
3. {{cite legislation UK. (1888)
4. "Wallasey Urban District / Municipal Borough / County Borough". GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth.
5. (5 April 1889). "Cheshire County Council: Meeting at Macclesfield". Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser.
6. {{cite legislation UK. (1972)
7. {{cite legislation UK. (1996)
8. {{cite legislation UK. (2008)
9. "County Council Archives". National Archives.
10. (25 November 2010). "University opens former County Hall to public". University of Chester.
11. "Compositions Calculator". University of Exeter.
12. "Council minutes".
13. (2 May 1973). "Push-button vote call". [[Liverpool Echo]].
14. (25 May 1979). "Committees elected". Cheshire Observer.
15. (14 May 1981). "Labour faces battle over pledge on cuts". [[Liverpool Echo]].
16. (29 October 1982). "Liberal move robs Labour of leadership". [[Liverpool Echo]].
17. (27 October 1983). "Controversial Ken will be county's new leader". [[Crewe Chronicle]].
18. (28 October 1983). "Ken's back on top". [[Liverpool Echo]].
19. (25 May 1984). "Lab-Lib pact on a joint budget". Chester Observer.
20. (10 May 1985). "Landslide Labour majorities". Cheshire Observer.
21. Body, Cynthia. (2 June 1993). "County in a swing to the right". Winsford Chronicle.
22. (26 February 1997). "Jobs lost in budget cutbacks". Winsford Chronicle.
23. (3 April 1998). "Councillors summoned to County Hall for last time". Chester Chronicle.
24. Glendon, Eddie. (27 Mar 1998). "Workers are told not to worry, at least for the time being
    Redundancy precautions". Chester Chronicle.
25. (11 May 2005). "Tories cling on to control the shire". Cheshire Live.
26. (14 May 2010). "Ex-County Council chief loses Cabinet post". Macclesfield Express.
27. (4 April 2024). "Extracts from the Chronicle Files "50 years ago"". [[Congleton Chronicle]].