ABSTRACT
The major city of the county of Kent in south-east England, Canterbury became a county borough in 1888 under the provisions of the Local Government Act of that year. Although close to London, being sixty-one miles away by rail and fifty-five by road, with good communications to the capital, Canterbury was on most indicators by far the least significant of the eighty-three county boroughs of the inter-war era. This was certainly so in terms of population and economic importance. With a population of 24,900 in 1901, for thirty years there was zero growth, and the census of 1931 recorded a fall of over 400 inhabitants over the previous ten years. Chester, one higher in the population ranking of county boroughs, had nearly double Canterbury's population in the period.
