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Harrow
May 20, 2018 10:06:39 GMT
Post by swanarcadian on May 20, 2018 10:06:39 GMT
Created in 1934. Became Harrow MB in 1954.
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Post by swanarcadian on Jun 25, 2018 21:47:16 GMT
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colinjg
Member
Living in the Past
Posts: 269
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Harrow
Jun 26, 2018 20:51:58 GMT
Post by colinjg on Jun 26, 2018 20:51:58 GMT
Again, some background from my website: At the time of the conclusion of the First World War, the area of Middlesex now administered by the modern London Borough of Harrow was under the local government jurisdiction of three principal local authorities: Harrow-on-the-Hill Urban District, Wealdstone Urban District and Hendon Rural District. In the late 1920s Middlesex County Council made orders under Section 57 of the Local Government Act 1888 for: a) the transfer of the parish of Pinner to Harrow-on-the-Hill Urban District, and, b) the formation of a new Urban District comprising Wealdstone Urban District and the four remaining parishes of Hendon Rural District, namely Harrow Weald, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore and Edgware.However, in December 1928 Middlesex County Council asked the Minister of Health to defer confirmation of the orders because of the annexation, after successful litigation, of the parish of Edgware by Hendon Urban District. Edgware was formally transferred to Hendon on 1 April 1931. In October 1929 Hendon Rural District Council made fresh submissions, called the Greater Harrow Scheme. The plan envisaged an amalgamation of the Urban Districts of Harrow-on-the-Hill and Wealdstone, with the four remaining parishes of Hendon Rural District (Pinner, Harrow Weald, Great Stanmore and Little Stanmore). The substance of the Scheme was accepted and incorporated in the Middlesex Review Order 1934 that created (among other things) the Urban District of Harrow. Over 99.8% of the area of the three former Districts and 135 acres of mainly open space and playing fields between Harrow School and Watford Road (a transfer from Wembley) were incorporated in the new Harrow Urban District; there were a few further adjustments (mostly consisting of lengths of road frontage) to obtain improved boundaries with neighbouring authorities. The Order also abolished the Parish Councils in Pinner, Harrow Weald, Great Stanmore and Little Stanmore.Harrow Urban District assumed full powers on 1 April 1934, eight days after the first election to the authority on 24 March. The Council met for the first time at the Technical School (now demolished) in Station Road, Harrow, on 9 April and Councillor Thomas Charles was elected as the first Chairman. During his address to the new Council, Charles proudly remarked that “Harrow is the largest Urban District in England, and the largest but one in England and Wales, the other being Rhondda Valley.”The composition of the Council was initially 36 Councillors, with 3 Councillors being elected from each of 12 wards. After the first election in 1934, annual elections were held for one-third of the seats (except during the Second World War when elections were suspended). In 1949 three additional wards were created as a result of a ward boundary revision, so raising the total number of Councillors to 45. Harrow UDC was superseded by the Municipal Borough of Harrow when a Charter of Incorporation was granted in 1954. I collected most of the results for Harrow UDC in the early 1980s, but over the years I have (hopefully!) improved and refined the presentation of the information to the current situation as on my website.
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colinjg
Member
Living in the Past
Posts: 269
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Post by colinjg on Aug 31, 2020 16:48:03 GMT
My avatar, Clement Attlee, was a resident of Stanmore - part of Harrow UDC - until he became Prime Minister in 1945. Here is his entry in the 1939 Register of Electors.His home, Heywood, was in Little Stanmore parish of Hendon Rural District Council prior to the formation of Harrow UDC in 1934. Attachments:
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colinjg
Member
Living in the Past
Posts: 269
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Post by colinjg on Jan 25, 2021 12:57:23 GMT
I have completed the "Revised Edition" of my publication Harrow Votes: The Urban District of Harrow, 1934-1953. The pages are now available as pdf files here. Like the recently published "Revised Edition" to the 1954-1963 volume the main change has been to abolish the 'percentage share of the vote' tables, and instead insert the % share of each candidate's vote in the main body of the ward results. I have tidied up the text throughout and, with access to the Hendon and Finchley Times on the BNA archive, discovered some extra information for footnotes to Stanmore North ward, including correcting a party designation for one of the successfully elected candidates in 1934. Also, for that ward, I have included a very brief biography of Henry Charleton, Labour's candidate in 1936 whilst also MP for Leeds South. Most of the data included in the publication arose from research carried out in the early 1980s. Reviewing it from this distance made me realise that I had assigned ward electorates in a fairly haphazard way: multiple sources were usually in close agreement, but I have never, until now, tried to justify my choice for these data. Hence a completely new appendix, Appendix U [!!], which is titled Ward Electorates: Sources and Issues. It is obviously a little technical in nature. I have been able to conduct a few - laborious! - counts of local government electors from some registers using Ancestry, which have made me comfortable with some of my choices. I have the possibility for doing a few more counts while the lockdown restrictions last, so the appendix might be further refined. Unfortunately lockdown prevents me from revisiting Harrow Local History Library which is currently the best source for the Harrow Observer from the 1930s, the pages of which are frustratingly absent from the BNA. Appendix U has not been proofread or peer reviewed; if anyone fancies having a go, I would be grateful. (Sadly Mrs colinjg is resisting my blandishments to proofread the whole site!)
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colinjg
Member
Living in the Past
Posts: 269
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Post by colinjg on Jun 23, 2021 21:42:55 GMT
ebay strikes again. Imagine my surprise when I found this earlier today:
Issued for propaganda purposes by the local Conservative Party, the poster - it is approx 30 x 20 inches - summarises the UDC results from the 1947 election. The main issue is not the starting price for bidding (£14.99), but the fact that it casts doubt on results for three Harrow wards, figures for which I thought I had known for ~40 years. (It can be mentioned at this point that official Harrow Council records go back to 1948, so my record for 1947 depended on the Harrow Observer report from their issue of 3 April 1947.) The three wards whose results are now in doubt: 1) RoxethNewspaper result: C 3,335 Lab 2,885 Poster result: C 3,335 Lab 2,855 2) Stanmore SouthNewspaper result: Lab 2,092 Lab 2,040 C 1,415 C 1,365 Poster result: Lab 2,092 Lab 2,040 C 1,415 C 1,368 3) Wealdstone SouthNewspaper result: C 2,205 Lab 1,158 L 845 Poster result: C 2,168 Lab 1,338 L 844 Who to believe? A reporter from the local rag, a newspaper where mis-prints are not unknown? Or, political operatives who probably prided themselves in getting their figures right for what they considered to be a piece of triumphant propaganda? It is possible to rationalise how the differences in Roxeth and Stanmore South results came about, but Wealdstone South is quite another matter. It should be noted that if the Wealdstone South electorate of 10,452 is correctly printed by the Observer, and the turnout was 41.62%, then there should have been 4,350 ballot papers. Adding the newspaper votes up gives 4,208, implying the balance - 142 - were spoilt papers, which seems suspiciously high. The number of valid votes stated by the poster is 4,350 (!), which implies zero or close to zero spoilt papers. Added in edit: 1. I could not resist bidding for this item, which I have secured. 2. My site is now updated with this latest information. The evidence was compelling that I adopt the 'poster' voting numbers as correct for Wealdstone South. All three wards in question now have suitable footnotes explaining the discrepancies.
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