ABSTRACT
Municipal corporations were initially authorised to provide a limited range of services, accounted for through the borough fund, which included the following: policing, the incarceration of offenders and lunatics, and the organisation of elections. The level and range of expenditure increased phenomenally, however, over the next hundred years. In particular, municipal corporations assumed full responsibility for the health and safety of local inhabitants by providing a wide range of services administered through the district fund, and for further improving living standards within an increasingly urbanised society by the establishment of ‘trading’ services (water, gas, electricity, and tramways) each also accounted for through its own separate fund account.
