ABSTRACT
As Hampton (1991) notes ‘The origins of local government in Britain are lost not so much in the mists of time as in a fog of detail’ (p. 15). Prior to the nineteenth century there was no uniform system and each municipal corporation had ‘a separate and different charter; various ad hoc bodies each had their own Acts of Parliament; parish councils arose from the operation of the common law without benefit of statute; and Quarter Sessions’ operated widely differing practices’ (Hampton, 1991, p. 15).
