Glamorgan County Council

Minutes of Glamorgan County Council 1923-1973; Annual reports of the Glamorgan County Architect, 1952-1973; Diaries, 1939-1973; Glamorganshire Reformatory School, 1907-1984; Development plans under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, 1950-1973; Electoral Registers, 1920-1947; Miscellaneous items, 1939

The Glamorgan County Council was established by the Local Government (County Councils) Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c.41). This Act reformed local government, establishing elected county councils to take over responsibility for those aspects of county administration which had until that date been dealt with by the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions. In particular, county councils assumed responsibility for county lunatic asylums and county bridges, as well as for a number of matters of regulation and control such as containing outbreaks of disease in cattle and the inspection of weights and measures. As well as the functions transferred from Quarter Sessions, responsibility for the maintenance of main roads was also transferred to county councils by the Act of 1888. Over time county councils gradually acquired further functions. The Education Act 1902 gave them responsibility for elementary education (except in municipal boroughs and urban districts over a certain size) and for secondary and intermediate education, while the Local Government Act 1929 transferred to the county councils responsibility for public assistance (including out-relief, care of the elderly, infirm and children, Poor Law hospitals, and institutions) from the Boards of Guardians. Moreover, new legislation passed relating to public health, agriculture, mental deficiency, highways and town and country planning gave substantial further responsibilities to county councils, particularly between 1919 and 1947. In the period immediately after the Second World War, some responsibilities were transferred to the county councils from the urban and rural district councils, but, with the establishment of the National Health Service and the Welfare State, the county councils lost to central government responsibilities for major services relating to health and public assistance. Local government was reorganised in 1974, and the Glamorgan County Council came to an end in March of that year: under the Local Government Act 1972, when the county of Glamorgan was divided into three new counties, Mid, South and West Glamorgan.

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