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The first registers of voters were lists of those owing land tax, since the right to vote depended on the amount of property a man owned.

It was not until the 1832 Reform Act that the creation of electoral registers became a requirement. At first these were the responsibility of the Quarter Sessions, although from 1888 they were compiled by County Councils and from 1974 by District Councils. The registers mainly list those eligible to vote for parliamentary elections although they often double as lists for local government elections.

The administration of roads and bridges was one of the very earliest functions of County administration. In 1555 an Act of Parliament was passed which made parishes responsible for the maintenance of the roads running through it, including supply of materials and labour for repairs. In 1663 Parliament first authorised the erection of turnpikes or toll barriers to raise funds for the maintenance of roads. By 1770 there were 7800 toll gates, despite the system being so unpopular it caused riots.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Industrial Revolution led to a large increase in traffic. In 1808 a Parliamentary Committee to consider the administration of roads was established. This Committee appointed paid county surveyors to examine the roads and produced a plan for the consolidation of the turnpike system around London, which led to improvement to the Middlesex turnpikes in 1826. It was not until the Local Government Act of 1888 that responsibility for the maintenance and repair of main roads was passed to county councils, while the care of smaller roads was passed to the local councils.

The Standing Joint Committee of most counties was responsible for control of the local police force. However, Middlesex was within the Metropolitan Police Area controlled by the Home Office, so the Standing Joint Committee was given other duties. These included matters relating to the accommodation of the quarter sessions and all property, appointment and control of officers and the provision of petty sessional court houses.

The Middlesex County Council Architect's Department was created in 1903 and existed until the abolition of the County Council in 1965. The Department reported to the General Purposes Committee and the Chief Officer was the County Architect. The 1902 Education Act abolished School Boards and replaced them with Local Education Authorities. Middlesex became an education authority and therefore also had responsibilities for the building and design of schools. In 1903 Harry George Crothall was appointed Surveyor and set up a drawing office with five assistants in a four roomed stable in Parliament Square. There began an intensive programme of designing and building schools and other educational establishments which was to continue, almost without respite, until 1965.

In 1905 Harry George Crothall was appointed County Architect. The bulk of the Department's work was concerned with schools and polytechnics. Schools were generally built with their classrooms around a central hall (for example Spring Grove School, Isleworth) and later central corridor plans (Tottenham County School). The architectural characteristic of the period up to 1914 was what might be described as Edwardian Baroque and conformed to the image of what was expected of public buildings of the time. The standard of draughtmanship within the Department was high, the 1/8" scale drawings were drawn in pencil and then traced onto linen, 1/2" details were done in watercolours.

After the First World War the Department continued to expand. In 1923 it moved to offices in Tufton Street and was divided into two sections of schools and hospitals. The population in Middlesex rose at a rate of 30.8% between 1921 and 1931 (5 times above the normal rate of growth and more than in any other administrative county) and at a rate of 27.4% between 1931 and 1939 (7 times above the normal rate). This boom necessitated the building of new schools and by 1927 the Architect's Department was able to produce a new school every 6 weeks. In the years immediately following the First World War schools were constructed in timber hutting. Later large mansions were converted into use. A number of grammar schools which were built in this period reflected past styles, for example Tudor influence can be seen in Christ's College, Finchley and Tottenham Grammar School and a Georgian influence in Edmonton County School.

William Thomas Curtis became County Architect in 1930 and new social legislation in the 1930s brought other types of work to the Department, particularly after the passing of the Local Government Act 1929. The staff designed libraries, clinics and hospitals - most notably Shenley Hospital which was opened in 1934 and had a layout centred on a church. The Harefield Sanatorium was built in the "aeroplane" suntrap style. The rate of production was unsurpassed by any other local authority. In 1937 the Department moved to Millbank and Great George Street; in 1938 it moved again to Vauxhall Bridge Road. Most work in the Department was halted on the outbreak of war in 1939, but staff did do some designs for the new Schools Meals Service which involved building kitchens and dining rooms from pre-fabricated components.

The creation of the National Health Service took away the County Council's responsibilities for hospitals and the office was reorganised to cope with the new school building programme. Under the terms of the Education Act 1944 the County Council became the education authority for all forms of education for the whole county. The Architect's Department therefore had responsibility for many more buildings. Many schools had been destroyed by bombing during the war and this was coupled with the population boom of the late 1940s so it was imperative that a new building programme was initiated. There were problems in finding adequate building materials and a skilled workforce.

Cecil Stillman became County Architect in 1946. He had gained an international reputation before the war for his experimental schools in Sussex and believed in the concept of flexibility in his work. He approached the school building programme by making the best use of available resources rather than erecting prefabricated schools (although some early post-war schools were prefabs built by prisoners of war). The programme was run on military lines, the building materials were bought in bulk and the Department returned their output to its pre-war level of one school a fortnight. It should also be noted that that the County Council was also able to keep its costs low. The tenders for 1950-1952 for primary schools averaged £133 per place and £231 per place for secondary schools: costs which were well below the Ministry of Education's figures. The new schools were often filled to capacity on their first day.

A hundred schools were built between 1946 and 1953 which provided 42,000 school places and a total of 200 schools were built between 1943 and 1956. Middlesex County Council built more schools in this period than any other education authority in the country (including London). It is probable that Cecil Stillman, who had worked as a local authority architect for twenty nine years for various authorities, was responsible for the building of more schools in England in the twentieth century than any other architect.

The style of schools changed from sprawling layouts to compact two storey buildings as land was in short supply. The Department established a reputation for progressive school architecture which was copied and admired world wide. The County Council tried whenever possible to choose sites with attractive rural settings even in the most urban of areas; Moss Hall School, Finchley is an example of this and Mount Grace School, Potters Bar shows how a school could be built on landscaped grounds without intrusion. Cavendish Primary School and Wilbury Way Primary School were particularly significant for their informal styles of windows and walls which attempted to put small children at their ease. Centre corridor classroom blocks were used in many secondary school buildings; exceptions to this include Mount Grace School. John Kelly School had only two staircases and no corridors; Woodfield School had classrooms grouped around a central hall.

Within this period the Department also built, converted and extended magistrates courthouses; clinics (for example Northcote Avenue Clinic, Southall; many old peoples homes; fire stations (including Twickenham, Harlesden and Feltham) and ambulance stations; colleges and institutes of higher education (such as Brunel and Harrow College); libraries (for example Eastcote); civil defence training centres; municipal buildings; children's homes; probation offices; youth and community centres; buildings on County Council estates. The work of the Department touched practically every area of work of the County Council.

In 1959 Cecil Stillman retired and was replaced by Herbert Whitfield Lewis who had previously worked for the London County Council (this move is typical of the interchange of architectural staff between the two authorities in this period). Lewis encouraged younger architects and expanded the use of bulk buying and prefabricated systems. There was less money to spend and this is reflected in the economically planned buildings of the 1960-1965 period, for example Manor Lane Primary School and Bourne Primary School. By the time of the abolition of the County Council in 1965 the Department felt that the future lay in prefabrication, bulk purchase and modular design for local authority architecture.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Adoption:

Until the Adoption Act 1926 legal adoption did not exist in English law. The 1926 Act gave no specific powers to local authorities, but the County Council was frequently, in its capacity as a local education authority, asked to act as a Guardian Ad Litem (that is to protect the child's rights before the law). When so requested, the County Council delegated this function to the officers of the Education Department. Other local education authorities could be approached instead in cases within their areas, or the Court's own probation officer might be appointed.

The Adoption of Children Regulation Act 1939 was designed to rectify some of the abuses of the 1926 Act and specifically, required adoption services to be approved and registered with local authorities. There were in fact only three such services in Middlesex in 1943 when the Act was finally implemented and only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, remained in operation for any length of time thereafter. Also from 1943 certain duties of supervision of private adoptions were placed upon the welfare authorities, of which the MCC was one.

The duties of the Education Department relating to adoptions passed to the newly created Children's Department in 1948. In the next year was passed the Adoption of Children Act 1949, which was immediately consolidated with the previous legislation as the Adoption Act 1950. This Act made significant changes to adoption procedures: that which most particularly affected the County Council was the requirement that no adoption order could be made unless at least three months notice of intention to adopt had been given to the welfare authority, i.e. the County Council. Therefore from 1950 the County Council was notified of every intended adoption within the County, regardless of who the guardian ad litem was. Further, on receipt of a notice of an intended third party adoption (that is to say an adoption placement made by a third party, not a registered adoption society or local authority; adoptions by parents of their own children - very commonly done by women with illegitimate children and subsequently married) an officer of the Children's Department would commence supervision of the child or children either until the granting of the Court Order, or, if the supervision revealed the prospective adopters as unsuitable, until the end of the statutory period. The Adoption Act 1958 extended the powers of supervision to all adoptions and from this date the County Council had, in theory, some record of every adoption that took place in the County. The Act also enabled local authorities to act as adoption agencies in their own right.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury

Children's Officer:

The Children's Act 1948 required the appointment of a Children's Officer to be the head of the Children's Department under the County Council. On 25th April 1948 the Council appointed Mr. E. Ainscow, then Assistant Education Officer in charge of the Children's Care Section of the Education Department, to be Children's Officer with effect from 1 May 1948. The Act itself took effect on 5 July 1948, and the appointment was in due course ratified by the Home Secretary.

However Mr Ainscow left the MCC in 1949 to take up the post of Children's Officer to the London County Council. His successor was Jane Rowell, previously Children's Officer to Durham County Council, who took over the post on 1 June 1949 and remained until the abolition of the MCC in 1965.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Children's Homes:
Middlesex County Council adopted the policy of closing large institutional homes and opening small residential homes on ordinary streets. These homes were scattered throughout the County so that children in care could be distributed among different schools. The homes were mixed in order to approximate family life and to keep brothers and sisters together. There were over 40 small children's homes, three intermediate homes and a reception centre in Middlesex. There were also residential nurseries.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Children's Homes:

Middlesex County Council adopted the policy of closing large institutional homes and opening small residential homes on ordinary streets. These homes were scattered throughout the County so that children in care could be distributed among different schools. The homes were mixed in order to approximate family life and to keep brothers and sisters together. There were over 40 small children's homes, three intermediate homes and a reception centre in Middlesex. There were also residential nurseries.

The Civil Defence Department existed from 1938-1946 and from 1948-1965. It reported to the Air Raids Precautions Committee (1938-1939) and the Civil Defence Committee (1948-1965).

The development of aircraft and related weaponry in the early twentieth century brought with it the threat of attacks on civilian populations and property at times of war. London in particular had suffered a degree of enemy action from the air during the First World War. In the 1930s the political situation in Europe compelled the government to implement legislation for the protection of the civilian population in the event of a war. In July 1935 the Home Office issued a circular on Air Raid Precautions (ARP) to all local authorities which encouraged them to create ARP machinery and to recruit and train the public in ARP duties. The decision to work through the local authorities was a significant one. In Middlesex some of the lower tier authorities developed high calibre plans (Hornsey for example) while others did very little work. This was a pattern reflected by the whole country. The county of Middlesex was considered by the Home Office to be an area of "especial danger" where civil defence was very important.

Under the 1937 Air Raid Precautions Act local authorities were obliged to draw up ARP schemes in order to protect civilians and their property from air attack. In Middlesex the Air Raid Precautions Committee consisting of County Councillors was formed in 1938. The Committee decided that the lower tier authorities had a major part to play in civil defence and urged them to appoint their own ARP officers and formulate proposals which could be co-ordinated by the County Council. A small Civil Defence Department was set up by the County Council to deal with this work under the leadership of a Civil Defence Officer. The Munich Agreement of September 1938 gave fresh impetus to the development of Civil Defence activities. A recruitment drive for part time volunteers was initiated together with the construction of air raid shelters and the establishment of rest centres. It was anticipated, given what had happened in the First World War, that poison gas would be used so gas masks were issued. First Aid Posts were set up and trenches built in open spaces. The Middlesex County Council area was incorporated into the London Civil Defence Region to form Group 6. The Civil Defence Act 1939 gave further responsibilities to the local authorities. On the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 a civil defence organisation was in being, although not equipped or ready for active service.

Evacuation plans for children and mothers were first drawn up in the late 1930s. The prime movers in this were the London County Council and the government, as Middlesex County Council was not responsible for all education provision at that date. The boroughs of Action, Edmonton, Hornsey, Tottenham and Willesden were included in the plans, and later also Enfield, Ealing, Brentford and Chiswick. Evacuation took place from 1-4 September 1939 and by this date many people had already left London privately. As no enemy bombing started in 1939 many evacuees returned to the capital before the end of the year and did not leave again until the start of the Blitz in September 1940.

Bombing in Middlesex began on 12 July 1940 and the whole of the county was badly affected by the Blitz (September 1940 - May 1941). There was a lull in bombing between May 1941 and 1944 with only sporadic attacks. During this period a degree of reorganisation took place within the Civil Defence services. The stretcher party service was amalgamated with the rescue service, wardens were given First Aid training. Emergency feeding was established by the Home Office and its use pioneered in Middlesex with the Red Cross who equipped and staffed empty houses and then housed homeless people and those suffering from shock. In the summer of 1944 attacks from flying bombs and long range rockets began (V1s and V2s) and Middlesex suffered early on and badly from these. 16,000 casualties were recorded. Notable incidents included 29 September 1940 daylight attack (target presumed to be Northolt Airport), when 200 high explosive bombs were dropped on area around Ruislip Road, Ealing; 30 November 1940 133 high explosive bombs dropped in a night raid on Twickenham and 13 February 1941 housing estate bombed near the Welsh Harp, Hendon.

The Civil Defence (Suspension of Powers) Act, 1945, suspended some provisions of the Civil Defence Acts 1937 and 1939, notably the obligations the local authorities had to prepare air raid precaution schemes, build shelters, train civil defence volunteers and organise the blackout. Full time civil defence staff were no longer required. The Middlesex County Council Air Raid Precautions Officer's Department was dissolved and its remaining duties undertaken by the Clerk's Department and County Treasurer's Department. The Home Office continued to encourage the activities of local Civil Defence branches of volunteers. These branches were strong in the Middlesex local districts so the County Council appointed honorary liaison officers to work with the branches. This work continued until the passing of the Civil Defence Act 1947.

The Civil Defence organisation stood down after the Second World War ended in 1945. In December 1948 the Civil Defence Act 1947 came into force and the County Council again received civil defence responsibilities. The new Act had been passed as an attempt to offer a measure of protection to the civilian population in the event of another war and in particular to tackle the new atomic warfare. The functions of the County Council fell into two areas: the organisation of the Middlesex Division of the Civil Defence Corps and the preparation of plans for the operation of certain war-time services The Civil Defence Committee sat again and a small Civil Defence Department was established under the County Civil Defence Officer. The County Council was again made responsible for the five areas of Hertfordshire within the Metropolitan Police District.

The County Council was responsible for the enrolment and training of volunteers to make up the Middlesex Defence Corps. The Civil Defence Committee decided at a very early stage that the lower tier authorities should play a large role in civil defence and be responsible for enrolling and training volunteers under the County Council's supervision. It was felt that a better response would be received from the general public if volunteers were organised locally. The local authorities were arranged into three sub-groups - Group A: Barnet, Cheshunt, East Barnet, Edmonton, Enfield, Finchley, Friern Barnet, Hornsey, Potters Bar, Southgate, Tottenham, Wood Green; Group B: Bushey, Elstree, Harrow, Hendon, Rusilip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Wembley, Willesden and Group C: Acton, Brentford and Chiswick, Ealing, Feltham, Hayes and Harlington, Heston and Isleworth, Southall, Staines, Sunbury-on-Thames, Twickenham, Yiewsley and West Drayton. The Corps was divided by the Civil Defence Act into five sections; headquarters; warden; ambulance and casualty collecting; rescue; welfare. Recruitment began in November 1949 and by the end of the year 8,579 members had been enrolled. The County Council retained the responsibility for ensuring that the instructors were trained. Qualifications could be obtained at Home Office Technical Training Schools.

Volunteers received basic training and then proceeded to work within the section of the Corps in which they had enrolled. The County Council provided courses for instructors to use for the headquarters, warden and ambulance sections and guided the local authorities in selecting the instructors for the welfare section. To ensure that volunteers were properly trained the County Council encouraged the districts to establish civil defence training centres and authorised expenditure with this in mind. Likewise the purchase of equipment was encouraged. By the end of 1952 25 districts had incendiary bomb huts; 24 districts had gas chambers and 13 districts had gas compounds. The Civil Defence Corps was often called in to assist other emergency services, for example in transport accidents and searches for missing children.

The County Civil Defence Officer was the chief officer of the department. Under him were four assistant Civil Defence Officers, an Assistant Rescue Officer, six full time instructors with clerical and manual support staff. There were personnel within other County Council departments who were charges within the planning of the emergency services and were so involved in civil defence work. There was a sub-divisional Civil Defence Officer in each local authority for whose salary expenses the local authority was reimbursed by the County Council.

In 1962 central government initiated an overhaul of the running of Civil Defence Corps. The aim of this reorganisation was to enhance the status of the Corps, to improve efficiency, and to develop a nucleus of highly trained volunteers. These changes took effect from 1 October 1962 and the most significant effect was to improve the standards of training. The civil defence functions of the County Council passed to the new London Boroughs and the county councils of Hertfordshire and Surrey.

In 1889 County Council policy was directed by 72 members and administered under the leadership of Sir Richard Nicolson, Clerk of the County Council, and a handful of staff. The number of members has risen to 116 by 1952 and by 1965 the County staff numbered some 32,000, of whom 2,000 head office staff occupied the Guildhall and five other offices in Westminster. This indicates the tremendous increase in administrative work under successive Clerks of the County Council.

In the years between the two wars a semi-rural county became an almost completely urbanised area. The introduction of new legislation made ever increased demands upon members of the administrative staff, involving in later years monthly meetings of some 50 committees and sub-committees.

The Middlesex County Council Clerks of the Council were:

Sir Richard Nicholson, 1889-1909

Walter George Austin, 1909-1918

Sir Ernest Walter Sidney Hart, 1919-1935

Sir Clifford Walter Radcliffe, 1935-1954

Kenneth Goodacre, 1955-1965.

The County Solicitor offered legal advice to the Councillors and was responsible for certain transactions. Sir Richard Nicholson, Sir Clifford Radcliffe and Kenneth Goodacre all doubled as the County Clerk and Solicitor.

The County Council was required to take vigorous measures to deal with various diseases of animals, including swine fever, foot and mouth disease and fowl pest. Order made by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, enforced by the Council, aimed at controlling the movement of animals during epidemics and preventing disease. Control of movement was achieved by a system of licensing and for this purpose qualified veterinary surgeons were employed as inspectors.

The Council was also responsible for enforcing the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1926, which dealt with the sale and purchase of solid and liquid fertilizers and of feeding-stuffs for horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. It was required that the seller must supply the analysis of the main constituents on every sale of these materials. Sellers' premises were visited by inspectors to ensure that information of the type required was being given, and samples were taken and checked by the County agricultural analyst.

The County Council exercised control over public performances of music, dancing, stage plays, cinemas, boxing and wrestling. Anyone seeking a licence to hold public entertainments had the option of submitting building plans to the County Engineer, enabling him to find out in advance if the plans complied with legislation. The plans were reported upon in detail to the Entertainments Committee by the County Engineer. Notice of the application had to be placed on the site or building, and time was given for any interested person to lodge objections with the Council. Whether or not the plans had been submitted for approval, application for a licence still had to be made as normal upon completion of the building.

All licenced buildings were visited by Council inspectors before renewal of the licence each year. Inspections were also made from time to time during the progress of entertainments, particularly in cinemas, to ascertain that the regulations were being complied with. Heavy penalties were imposed for infringement of the regulations.

The County Council became responsible for the fire brigade service in Middlesex on 1 April 1948. At this date there were thirty-eight fire stations sited for local pre-war needs in three districts, with public calls routed to stations. Abolition of street alarms allowed communications to be gradually centralised into one control at Wembley. A reorganisation scheme was embarked upon based on twenty-eight stations strategically sited and involving sixteen new stations, the last of which was ready in 1965. Fire prevention work, handled in 1948 by two uniformed staff and one civilian officer, by 1964 required twenty-eight uniformed and ten civilian staff. The entire fleet of appliances taken over from the wartime National Fire Service was replaced by modern appliances, and a scheme was undertaken to improve and standardise hydrants.

From 1948 to 1964 the Brigade responded to over 170,000 calls to incidents of all kinds. Notable incidents included fires at a timber yard in Hayes (1952), at a Brentford soap works (1959), at a Wealdstone furniture repository (1961), at a furniture factory at Ponders End (1964) and the Harrow and Wealdstone railway crash of 1952. Three British Empire Medals and two Queen's Commendations for gallantry were awarded to fire fighters and the Royal Humane Society made awards to ten members of the Brigade.

The Council became responsible for the Ambulance Service on 5 July 1948. The ambulance service used the accommodation, communications and control organisation of the fire service. In 1959 the sick removal branch of the ambulance service (that is, taking people to hospital for routine appointments) became part of the health service administration and the fire and ambulance services were separated in 1962.

In 1889 County Council policy was directed by 72 members and administered under the leadership of Sir Richard Nicolson, Clerk of the County Council, and a handful of staff. The number of members had risen to 116 by 1952 and by 1965 the County staff numbered some 32,000, of whom 2,000 head office staff occupied the Guildhall and five other offices in Westminster. This indicates the tremendous increase in administrative work under successive Clerks of the County Council.

In the years between the two wars a semi-rural county became an almost completely urbanised area. The introduction of new legislation made ever increased demands upon members of the administrative staff, involving in later years monthly meetings of some 50 committees and sub-committees.

The County Solicitor offered legal advice to the Councillors and was responsible for certain transactions. Sir Richard Nicholson, Sir Clifford Radcliffe and Kenneth Goodacre all doubled as the County Clerk and Solicitor.

In 1870 the Education Act was passed making the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic compulsory. To give effect to the Act School Boards were set up with the duty to provide 'Board' schools were there were not enough voluntary, privately funded schools. In January 1891 the MCC passed its first resolution dealing with technical education, in 1895 it purchased the first of its polytechnics and in 1901 started its first secondary school.

The school leaving age was 12, and the elementary education system dealt in elementary schools with children from the age of 5 to 15. The concern of higher education was technical colleges, art schools, evening institutes, and especially secondary schools. Under the 1902 Education Act the County Council became responsible for higher education in the whole county, but was the authority for elementary education only in districts where the population was below a certain figure. In the other districts (known as 'Part III' districts for the part of the Act dealing with this matter) the borough or urban district were responsible for elementary education.

Between 1901 and 1938 the population of Middlesex grew from 792,000 to 1,952,000. This meant that more schools were urgently required and in the same period the County Council ordered the construction of 93 elementary schools, 42 secondary schools and 7 technical colleges and art schools. The 1926 'Hadow' report advocated the provision of advanced courses for all children over 11 years of age. As a consequence, 'senior elementary' schools came into existence for children of 11 to 14 years. These were the forerunners of the modern secondary school.

Under the Education Act of 1944 the 'part III' areas were abolished and the County Council became the local education authority for all forms of education for the whole of the County. The three stages of education were recognised by the Act - that is, the primary stage (up to 11 years old), the secondary stage (11 to 18) and the further education stage (18 onwards). The education authority was also encouraged to become more concerned with the educational welfare of the child in its widest sense. The school meals service, school health service, youth service and community centres were all considered to be an integral part of this remit by the MCC.

The County Council was required by statute to appoint a Finance Committee, and a recommendation from the Finance Committee was required to enable payments to be made. This prevented the Council committing itself to expenditure beyond its means. In addition to the duty of examining and approving estimates, the Committee also examined and approved all accounts for payment, made arrangements for financing expenditure and raised loans.

The chief financial officer was the County Treasurer. He had responsibility for the conduct of the Financial Department and the control and organisation of the staff. He also prepared, in conjunction with other chief departmental officers, estimates of the expenditure of each committee for the ensuing year.

The County Council had three sources of revenue: the income from charges of various kinds which they are allowed by law to levy; government grants and rates. Charges for services included school tuition, for accommodation at old people's homes, for children maintained in Council homes, for home helps and other health services, although some of these charges were stopped or changed over the course of the Council's operations. Other charges included rentals of properties, smallholdings, fines and court fees, and various licences. Government grants included contributions from the Ministry of Transport towards upkeep of roads, assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture for small holdings, payment from the Ministry of Education for school meals and teacher training, a grant from the Home Office for the Fire Service and a grant from the Ministry of Health for health services.

The balance of the Council's requirements was raised by rates. These were obtained not by a direct levy on the tax-payer but by a precept on each borough and urban district council, as the rating authority. This precept required each authority to pay to the County Council a rate of so many pence in the pound by instalments spread over the financial year. For the bulk of services the County precept was levied over the whole County, but for some services a 'special county rate' was levied. For example, the borough of Acton was responsible for its own public libraries, therefore it would have been unjust for the rate-payers of that borough to pay a County charge for libraries outside their area.

Everyday expenditure on the upkeep of schools and roads, on salaries and wages and on the many other services was known as 'revenue expenditure', as distinct from 'capital expenditure'. The building of a new school or similar project was 'capital expenditure'. In most cases this would be too heavy to charge to the rates in one year, and the money was borrowed in the form of stock issues or mortgages.

The Edmonton Latymer Foundation was the legacy of Edward Latymer (1557 or 1558-1627), an official of the Court of Wards, who by his will dated 1624 left property in the Hammersmith area to provide, amongst other things, clothing and education for eight poor boys of Edmonton and eight of Fulham. Separate groups of trustees administered the property on behalf of the boys in the two parishes.

In 1896 the Council was empowered to apply to the Railway Commissioners for an Order authorizing the construction of a light railway. For practical purposes there was no distinction between a light railway and a tramway, except that at that time tramways were horse-drawn. With the introduction of electric traction that distinction very soon disappeared. The MCC obtained a number of Light Railway Orders after the passing of the Act, but it did not work the railways, leasing them to the Metropolitan Electric Tramways.

With the establishment of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1930, all the Council's light railways and tramways were transferred to the Board. They were replaced with trolley buses and buses operated by the London Transport Executive.

The Middlesex County Council owned over 1,346 acres of agricultural land which was let to 400 tenants over the course of the Council's existence. The holdings varied in size from just over half and acre to 75 acres. With few exceptions the smaller holdings produced fruit and vegetables, pigs, poultry and eggs, whilst the larger holdings are used for dairy farming. Smallholdings were regarded as essential to the health of the industry, forming a 'ladder' for skilled agricultural workers, frequently leading to the occupation of larger farms outside the scheme.

All possible assistance and encouragement was given to the tenants in order to enable them to become successful smallholders, in return for which a high standard of production was required. Regulations were made by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries governing the selection of tenants. These regulations provided that preference must be given to agricultural workers with at least five years experience and that tenancies had to be granted to applicants between the ages of 25 and 50.

The Middlesex Magistrates' Courts Committee functioned for the whole County, and its members included justices representing each petty sessional division in the County. The Council worked closely with the Committee, and was empowered to make representations to the Home Secretary regarding any decision to alter the petty sessional divisions. The Council was expected to pay the expenses of the Committee and to appoint clerks to the justices and their staff. The Council also assumed responsiblity for the provision of petty sessional courthouses and the necessary furniture and books.

Magistrates' Courts were presided over by Justices of the Peace, who dealt at petty sessions, held locally, for minor offences committed within that petty sessional division. More serious offences were tried at quarter sessions.

When the County Council became a planning authority in 1948 its planning duties were, broadly, to control the development of land in the County and to prepare a Development Plan. Between the wars Middlesex had grown at a phenomenal rate, producing sprawl and over-industrialisation, with the attendant problems of competing uses for the remaining available land.

The County Development Plan, which laid down the future pattern of land use in Middlesex, was approved by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1956 and the Review of the Plan was before the Minister in 1964. The Plan maintained a careful balance of competing uses and was primarily directed towards the maintenance of the Green Belt, a limitation on uses giving rise to employment and improved provision of open space and land for the social services. Under its planning policies, the County Council arranged for hundreds of trees to be planted near main thoroughfares and acquired about fifty wrongly sited premises in order to extinguish their industrial uses.

In carrying out its planning functions the Council worked in close co-operation with the local authorities and under its delegation scheme a large number of applications for planning permission were dealt with by the borough and district councils.

Before 1870 schools were run as private concerns including small private schools and dame schools, the endowed grammar schools, and the beginning of the development of the Public Schools, and for the very poor there existed schools run by religious organisations.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 marked a watershed in the history of English education. It was based on the principle of elementary education for all. It aimed 'to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send the children to the schools', and principally to provide instruction in basic literacy and numeracy until the age of 12. The Act provided for the division of England and Wales into school districts. Wherever surveys showed that existing voluntary Schools could not provide enough places for all the school age children within their districts, the ratepayers elected school Boards, which were required to supplement the existing schools with (what became known as) Board Schools. Funds to build and maintain were to come from fees, government grants and the rates. This was the starting point of local responsibility for education expenditure, and of the partnership of central and local authorities.

The Act was not received with unbounded enthusiasm anywhere in the country and Middlesex was no exception. Many areas were reluctant to set up school boards and only did so after repeated prompting from the Education Department of the Privy Council. In many areas problems arose over the co-existence of Board Schools and denomination schools, and the building of new schools was at times regarded as extravagant and seen as robbing the ratepayer. Indeed, in order to avoid the expenditure associated with them, Ealing did not set up a School Board, establishing instead the Ealing Education Association in 1877 to promote voluntary subscriptions to help maintain existing schools. Nevertheless the Act made it possible for children who would previously never have had the opportunity, to receive some basic instruction. By 1903 the School Boards in Middlesex had completed 31 new elementary schools, with 3 more in the process of building.

School Board Districts in Middlesex: Acton; Ashford; Boston Road (formerly Hanwell National School); Brentford; Edgware; Edmonton; Enfield; Feltham, Hanworth and Bedfont; Finchley; Friern Barnet and South Mimms; Hanwell; Hampton Wick; Harmondsworth; Harefield; Harrow United School Board; Hornsey; Kingsbury; Norwood; Southall; Southgate; Staines; Tottenham; Uxbridge; Willesden and Wood Green.

School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. They were given charge of all elementary and much secondary education throughout the country.

Maintenance of county roads and bridges was supervised by the County Engineer and Surveyor's Department.

The County Council's Architectural Service was concerned with the diverse types of building required for the education, health, welfare, legal, administrative and fire and ambulance services run by the County, each with special requirements affecting their design.

The name 'Middlesex' is first recorded in a charter of AD 704 in the Latin form of 'Middelseaxan'. In the Domesday survey of 1086 the county is divided into six Hundreds (Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow, Ossulstone and Spelthorne) which remained as administrative units until the 19th century. Government in the County was in the hands of the justices of the peace, whose administrative duties steadily increased from the 16th century. In the 19th century boards of guardians became responsible for the care of poor persons; highway boards and boards of health were created and the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was set up in 1855 as the central administrative and coordinating body for the area which later became the Administrative County of London.

The Local Government Act of 1888 transferred the bulk of Middlesex wealth and population into the new County of London. Those areas which became part of London included Hammersmith, Chelsea, Kensington, Paddington, Fulham, Saint Marylebone, Saint Pancras, Westminster, Islington, Hackney, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, Mile End, Bethnal Green and Shoreditch. Remaining in Middlesex were Twickenham, Sunbury-on-Thames, Staines, Feltham, Heston, Isleworth, Brentford, Chiswick, Yiewsley, West Drayton, Hayes, Harlington, Southall, Acton, Ealing, Uxbridge, Ruislip, Northwood, Harrow, Wembley, Willesden, Hendon, Finchley, Hornsey, Wood Green, Tottenham, Edmonton, Southgate, Friern Barnet, Enfield and Potters Bar. The ancient Middlesex Guildhall was situated in Westminster, which was now part of the County of London. Nevertheless, the Guildhall buildings in Westminster remained the headquarters of Middlesex County Council.

The newly formed Middlesex County Council (MCC) first met in February 1889, with Mr Ralph Littler in the Chair. The principal functions of the County Council in 1889 were:

• matters relating to the levying of rates for county purposes

• control of the accounts of the County and of the County Treasurer

• ownership of county halls, courts and premises used for the administration of justice

• licensing of premises for public performances of stage plays, music and dancing and licensing of race courses

• provision and maintenance of asylums for pauper lunatics

• provision and maintenance of reformatory and industrial schools

• maintenance of County bridges

• matters affecting the County Surveyor, County Treasurer and all other County officers paid from the county rate

• matters relating to coroners and their districts

• division of the County into polling districts for Parliamentary elections and the appointment of polling places

• execution of acts of Parliament relating to diseases of animals, protection of wild birds, supervision of weights and measures, explosives and gas meters

• maintenance of all roads

• purchase of land for County purposes and sale of surplus land

• appointing of medical officers of health and other such officers as necessary

• power to make byelaws.

Further powers were conferred on the Council by later Acts of Parliament, including:

• responsibility for education and the administration of primary, secondary and technical schools (Education Act 1902)

• supervision of midwives and maternity services (Midwives Act 1902, Local Government Act 1929)

• supervision of employment agencies and ice cream vendors (1906)

• child welfare (Children's Act 1908 and Children and Young Persons Act 1932)

• regulation of cinemas and the storage of celluloid (Cinematograph Act 1909)

• public health and housing responsibilities (1909 and 1930)

• care of the mentally deficient; care of those suffering from tuberculosis (1913)

• welfare of the blind (1920)

• library services (1922)

• administration of hospitals and institutions after the abolition of the Boards of Guardians (1929)

• registration of births, marriages and deaths (1929)

• provision of sports, recreation and physical training facilities (1937)

• civil defence responsibilities (Air Raid Precautions Act 1938 and Civil Defence Act 1939)

• town and county planning (1947)

• fire and ambulance services (1947)

The Council also lobbied Parliament for powers it felt it required through the passing of the Middlesex County Council Acts, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1938 and 1950. Powers conferred by these acts included bridge construction, authority over mains drainage, authority over parks and open spaces, further controls over highways and licensing of wrestling and boxing entertainments.

Middlesex prospered until its growth from an area of small towns and villages to almost total urbanisation, which gradually eliminated all visible boundaries between London and Middlesex. This resulted in the merging of the two counties into a Greater London area in 1965, run by the Greater London Council (GLC).

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Approved schools and remand homes:
In the first half of the nineteenth century, child offenders were sent to gaols along with adults; no differentiation was made. In the late 1840s and 1850s however, largely as a result of the Ragged School movement, various philanthropic groups and individuals began to experiment with schools for the reformation of delinquent children; also advocated were industrial schools where the children of the poorest classes whose mode of life was such that there was the probability of their becoming offenders might be fed and gainfully occupied in the acquisition and exercise of some means of making an honest livelihood. The movement bore fruit in the form of the Reformatory Schools (Youthful Offenders) Act 1854 and the Industrial Schools and Reformatory Schools Act 1857 reinforced by two further statutes of 1866. Under these acts, county justices were obliged to commit young offenders to such institutions, and local authorities to maintain them there, as well as being empowered themselves to maintain or contribute to the maintenance of such institutions (most were run by philanthropic or religious bodies).

On the creation of the Middlesex County Council in 1889 it was allotted the justices' functions regarding the maintenance of juveniles in reformatory and industrial schools. These functions were made the responsibility of the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Committee (after 1908 the Reformatory Schools Committee) until 1933.

The 1908 Children Act in effect abolished the difference between industrial and reformatory schools, which had more or less ceased to exist in 1899, when the Reformatory Schools Amendment Act did away with the requirement that juveniles committed to a reformatory school should spend a preliminary period in prison. More importantly the 1908 Act set up juvenile courts as an integral part of the legal system and redefined the reasons for which children might be brought before the Courts to include a much wider range of welfare (as opposed to punitive) committals. For example children being non-offenders might be brought before the juvenile courts as needing protection, if found begging in the streets; wandering and having no proper guardian; destitute, with parent(s) in prison; in the care of drunken or criminal parents; the daughter of a father convicted of the carnal knowledge of any daughter under 16; frequenting the company of a reported thief or prostitute; living in a house frequented by prostitutes or living in circumstances likely to lead to the seduction or prostitution of the child. Such children would then be committed if necessary to an industrial or reformatory school and maintained by the County Council. Further, whereas juveniles awaiting trial had previously been kept in prisons, it was now incumbent upon the police authorities to provide separate places of detention.

In the case of Middlesex the police authority was the Standing Joint Committee, who provided the Place of Detention, Willesden, located at 49 Church Road, Willesden. It opened in 1911 for the accommodation of remanded boys and girls. In 1913 the London County Council agreed to place the girls and the establishment thereafter was for the boys only. It closed in January 1921, when the LCC agreed to accommodate remanded boys for Middlesex County Council.

Major reforms were brought about by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 which remained in force with amendments for the rest of the Council's existence. This Act replaced places of detention by remand homes, and reformatory and industrial schools by approved schools (i.e. approved by the Home Office). Juvenile offenders were committed by the juvenile courts by an approved school order to the care of the managers of an approved school. The placements were ultimately under the aegis of the Home Office, and could in theory be made anywhere in the country. The County Council was responsible for children and young people in its area. It was also responsible for making good any shortage in approved school accommodation, at the direction of the Home Office. Middlesex children might thus be committed to an approved school anywhere in the country, including those maintained by the MCC; the approved schools maintained by the MCC might receive children from and maintained by any authority in England and Wales. These new duties were given to the Education Committee, and the Reformatory Schools Committee was wound up.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury

Children in care:
The care of destitute children, one of the functions of the Elizabethan poor law, was made a duty of the Boards of Guardians under the reformed Poor Law of the 1834 Act. They provided relief and education, and later arranged employment, apprenticeship or emigration. From 1889, the guardians could adopt children - that is to say assume the rights and duties of parents towards them. The Guardians were also empowered to board out children, either in private families or in voluntary homes. The Children Act 1908 among other important provisions described elsewhere transferred to the Guardians the duties of inspection and supervision previously given to the justices and the police under the child life protection legislation being passed from 1872.

The Local Government Act 1929 and the Poor Law Act 1930 abolished the Guardians and transferred their powers to local authorities. Those specifically relating to the poor and destitute became the responsibility of the newly formed Public Assistance Department of the Middlesex County Council, who took over the children and institutions formerly under the Guardians. Those large institutions still in use for children, such as the Chase Farm Schools in Enfield (formerly Edmonton Union) were re-employed, and the children placed in smaller and more personal homes favoured by the MCC.

The duties of the Guardians relating to child life protection were passed to the Maternity and Child Welfare authorities under the Maternity and Child Welfare Act 1918, of which the MCC was one, although the larger boroughs and urban districts provided their own services. The MCC Maternity and Child Welfare Service was part of the Public Health Department. Children with physical and mental disabilities were the responsibility of the local education authorities under the Education Act 1902, of which the MCC's Education Department was one, although as with the Maternity and Child Welfare services, there were others in the county.

All of these functions were taken over in 1948 by the Children's Department subsequent to the Children's Act. The Department also took over certain other functions of the Education Department. As stated above, the Acts of 1929 and 1930 transferred to the MCC Education Department the care of children with disabilities. The Department's role in child care was however greatly increased by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (under this Act a child was defined as one up to the age of 14, and a young person as being aged 14-16). Besides re-stating the procedures by which a child being the victim of wilful neglect or cruelty might be brought before the courts for its own safety, this Act gave a new importance to local education authorities by transferring to them the duty of bringing before the courts children and young persons in need of care and protection; the administration of remand homes and newly established approved schools; and of being a "fit person" to whom the courts could commit the children brought before them.

The 1948 Act had the effect of transferring these functions of the Education Department to the Children's Department. Children taken into care were now defined by the relevant sections of the Act. Section One permitted the local authority to assume the care of orphaned or deserted children and children whose parents or guardians were unable or unfit to take care of them: this section also contained the unprecedented proviso that the children should be returned to their parents or guardians if at all possible. Section Two permitted the local authority to assume all parental rights and responsibilities over a Section One child if it seemed that the circumstances which caused the child to be taken into care would be permanent. Section Five made it obligatory for the local authority to accept the care of a child committed to it as a "fit person" by a court under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Children in care:

The care of destitute children, one of the functions of the Elizabethan poor law, was made a duty of the Boards of Guardians under the reformed Poor Law of the 1834 Act. They provided relief and education, and later arranged employment, apprenticeship or emigration. From 1889, the guardians could adopt children - that is to say assume the rights and duties of parents towards them. The Guardians were also empowered to board out children, either in private families or in voluntary homes. The Children Act 1908 among other important provisions described elsewhere transferred to the Guardians the duties of inspection and supervision previously given to the justices and the police under the child life protection legislation being passed from 1872.

The Local Government Act 1929 and the Poor Law Act 1930 abolished the Guardians and transferred their powers to local authorities. Those specifically relating to the poor and destitute became the responsibility of the newly formed Public Assistance Department of the Middlesex County Council, who took over the children and institutions formerly under the Guardians. Those large institutions still in use for children, such as the Chase Farm Schools in Enfield (formerly Edmonton Union) were re-employed, and the children placed in smaller and more personal homes favoured by the MCC.

The duties of the Guardians relating to child life protection were passed to the Maternity and Child Welfare authorities under the Maternity and Child Welfare Act 1918, of which the MCC was one, although the larger boroughs and urban districts provided their own services. The MCC Maternity and Child Welfare Service was part of the Public Health Department. Children with physical and mental disabilities were the responsibility of the local education authorities under the Education Act 1902, of which the MCC's Education Department was one, although as with the Maternity and Child Welfare services, there were others in the county.

All of these functions were taken over in 1948 by the Children's Department subsequent to the Children's Act. The Department also took over certain other functions of the Education Department. As stated above, the Acts of 1929 and 1930 transferred to the MCC Education Department the care of children with disabilities. The Department's role in child care was however greatly increased by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (under this Act a child was defined as one up to the age of 14, and a young person as being aged 14-16). Besides re-stating the procedures by which a child being the victim of wilful neglect or cruelty might be brought before the courts for its own safety, this Act gave a new importance to local education authorities by transferring to them the duty of bringing before the courts children and young persons in need of care and protection; the administration of remand homes and newly established approved schools; and of being a "fit person" to whom the courts could commit the children brought before them.

The 1948 Act had the effect of transferring these functions of the Education Department to the Children's Department. Children taken into care were now defined by the relevant sections of the Act. Section One permitted the local authority to assume the care of orphaned or deserted children and children whose parents or guardians were unable or unfit to take care of them: this section also contained the unprecedented proviso that the children should be returned to their parents or guardians if at all possible. Section Two permitted the local authority to assume all parental rights and responsibilities over a Section One child if it seemed that the circumstances which caused the child to be taken into care would be permanent. Section Five made it obligatory for the local authority to accept the care of a child committed to it as a "fit person" by a court under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Child Life Protection (Fostering and Boarding-out):

Both fostering and boarding out as activities greatly pre-date the formation of the County Council. Fostering - that is the arrangement whereby one person pays another for the care of a child - has always existed in one form or another. Boarding out was a function of the Guardians under both the old and reformed Poor Law, whereby pauper children, instead of being maintained in the workhouse were housed by private individuals either in or out of the Union, who paid them for doing so. The main motive for this was probably economic: boarding out cost the Guardians less than maintaining the child in a workhouse, and those taking pauper children were able to use them as cheap, if not indeed free, labour.

Fostering too had its abuses, the grossest of which was baby farming, the scandal of which necessitated legislation in the form of the Infant Life Protection Act 1872 which made it compulsory for persons taking for hire two or more infants less than a year old to register with the local authorities, who were the Councils in the care of the boroughs and the Justices in the case of counties. A new Infant Life Protection Act was passed in 1897 which included the power for the inspectors of the local authority forcibly to remove a fostered child to a place of safety if it were endangered. A further measure to the same end was the Notification of Births Act 1907, a permissive act , made compulsory in 1915, whereby all births had not only to be registered but also notified to the local medical officer of health.

Under the Children Act 1908, the legislation was extended to cover those fostering one child for reward. Child life protection as a whole was transferred to the Poor Law authorities, whose duties comprised the receiving of notice where a person undertook for reward the nursing and maintenance of an infant under the age of 7; the appointment of visitors to inspect such children; the limitation of the number in a dwelling; the removal of such infants improperly kept; and the receiving of fines imposed from offences. Poor Law institutions had in fact been specifically excluded from child life protection legislation, and they were thus not obliged to inspect their own boarding out facilities. These had already been the subject of separate legislation in 1889 and 1905, to be followed by more in 1909 and 1911, whereby boarding-out committees exercised an impartial supervision of the measures of each Union.

The Local Government Act 1929 abolished the Guardians and their powers were transferred to and divided between various Departments of the County Councils and their authorities. Child life protection became the duty of the local health authorities responsible for the maternity and child welfare services under the Maternity and Child Welfare Act 1918. These were the same authorities as were constituted under the Notification of Births Act, of which the MCC was one of several in the County. Boarding-out of children in care, however, became the duty of the Public Assistance Department.

All the Maternity and Child Welfare authorities passed their child life protection duties to the Children's Department in 1948, which thus became responsible for the supervision of fostering throughout the County. The Department was of course also responsible for the boarding out of children in care.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

iv) Under the Adoption Act 1926, the County Council had since 1943 to oversee the compulsory registration of adoption societies in the county (not an onerous duty: two were registered in of which only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, continued for any length of time). Compulsory notification to the County Council of all adoptions in the county was not introduced until the Adoption Act 1950. Also, from that point of view the Council had to supervise every prospective third party adoption in its area, whether or not involved in any other capacity. After the 1958 Act the Council had the power to place children for adoption even if those children were not in its care. Its powers of supervision were widened to include all adoptions in the county.

Health areas of the County of Middlesex, also used as administrative areas by the MCC Children's Department: Area 1 Enfield and Edmonton; Area 2 Southgate, Potters Bar, Wood Green and Friern Barnet; Area 3 Hornsey and Tottenham; Area 4 Finchley and Hendon; Area 5 Harrow; Area 6 Wembley and Willesden; Area 7 Ealing and Acton; Area 8 Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9 Heston and Isleworth, Southall and Area 10 Feltham, Staines, Twickenham, Sunbury.

Chairmen of the Middlesex County Council, 1889-1965:
Sir Ralph Littler, 1889-1908

Sir Montagu Sharpe, 1908-1909

William Regester, 1909-1912

Cecil Fane De Salis, 1919-1924

Benjamin Todd, 1924-1927

Sir Charles Pinkham, 1927-1930

George Marlow Reed, 1930-1933

Sir Howard Button, 1933-1936

William Prescott, 1936-1937

Forrester Clayton, 1937-1940

Sir Gilfrid Craig, 1940-1943

William Reginald Clemens, 1943-1946

Bernard Harry Rockman, 1946-1947

Sir Fred Messer, 1947-1948

William John Irving, 1948-1949

Albert Henry Farley, 1949-1951

Sir William Josiah Grimshaw, 1951-1953

Sir Archer Hoare, 1953-1954

Albert Noel Hansel Baines, 1954-1955

Sir Stanley Graham Rowlandson, 1955-1956

Sir Christopher George Armstrong Cowan, 1956-1957

William Rendel Myson Chambers, 1957-1958

Thomas Henry Joyce, 1958-1959

George Albert Pargiter, 1959-1960

Muriel Rose Forbes, 1960-1961

Sir Joseph Haygarth, 1961-1962

James Henry Knaggs, 1962-1963

Frances Timpson, 1963-1964

John Wilfred Barter, 1964-1965.

The work of the County Health Department included maternity and child health services; care and after-care of persons in the community who have been ill; prevention of illness; health education; school health services; mental health services and health control at airports. The Health Department had central offices and offices in each health area and there is a large staff of doctors, dentists, nurses and other technical staff, in addition to administrative and clerical staff, under the direction of the County Medical Officer of Health and the District Medical Officers.

The General Purposes Committee was responsible for matters of general principle and policy, and matters which affected more than one committee, but which were not designated as the responsibility of any one of those committees. It was also responsible for departments which did not have a separate committee.

Responsiblities of the General Purposes Committee:

• Coroners for Middlesex

• the Architect's Department

• the Local Tax Department

• town planning

• the Public Control Department

• public relations

• refuse dumps

• registration of births, marriages and deaths

• public swimming pools

• county boundaries and local government areas

• county and parliamentary elections

• financial assistance to bodies in the County working to promote trade, industry or commerce

• Alexandra Palace, Wood Green

• Hogarth's House, Chiswick

• ceremonials

• the coordination of dates and times of committee meetings

• the coordination of ceremonies

• control of MCC publications

• representing the MCC at external conferences

• general administration

London Heathrow started life in 1946 as an army surplus small grass airfield. Privately owned, the Great Western Aerodrome was used largely for test flying with commercial flights taking off from nearby Heston and Hanworth Park airfields.

In 1944 it was requisitioned by the Air Ministry to be developed as a major transport base for the Royal Air Force. Before the work was completed, the war ended and with it came the prospect of a huge expansion in civil aviation. London needed a large airport with modern equipment and the partly-built site at Heathrow was ideal. One runway was ready for use and when the Ministry of Civil Aviation took it over in 1946 the tented terminal was quickly put in place and a new chapter began.

By 1947 three runways had been completed and work on another three - subsequently abandoned as unnecessary - was going on. A new, permanent building arose in the central area at the start of the 1950s, replacing the tent. As traffic boomed Heathrow Airport found itself with an ever-increasing demand for passenger facilities. The Queen inaugurated a new building in 1955 (Terminal 2) and the tunnel which provides the main road access to Heathrow's central area was opened. Next came the new Oceanic terminal handling long-haul carriers, a function it still performs as Terminal 3, followed by the opening of Terminal 1 in 1968. Increased congestion in the central area led to the birth of Terminal 4 in 1986 on the south side of the airport

Source: http://www.heathrow-airport-guide.co.uk/history.html.

The Children's Department of the Middlesex County Council was set up under the Children Act 1948 which embodied the findings of the Curtis Report of 1945-1946. The Act took effect on 5 July 1948; the first meeting of the newly formed Children's Committee took place on the next day, taking over from the Interim Children's Committee, formed of the members of the thereafter defunct Children's Care Sub-Committee of the Education Committee. The first Children's Officer, Mr Ainscow, had in fact been appointed in anticipation, with effect from 1 May 1948. The duties of the Department had previously been distributed across several County Council departments (the Public Assistance, Public Health and Education Departments), as well as bodies (education authorities outside the MCC and the County Maternity and Child Welfare authorities) not part of the County Council at all.

The activities of the Children's Department may be summarised as follows:
i) Care and welfare: this comprised of the provision of care for a) children under the age of 17 if they had no parents or guardians; if they were abandoned or lost; of if their parents were unable to provide for their proper upbringing, provided that such care was in the child's best interests: and b) children committed by a court to the care of the County Council under a Fit Person order. This involved inter alia the running of homes and nurseries, the maintenance of the boarding out system for foster homes, and in some cases the assumption of full parental rights until the child should attain majority. The Department also undertook the care of children as delegated by the Welfare Department when dealing with problem or evicted families.

ii) Child Life Protection: this was a long standing local authority responsibility. After the passing of the Children Act 1948 its effect was to render it an offence for any person other than the parent, legal guardian or a relative to undertake for reward (whether or not for profit) the care of a child below school leaving age (15 in 1948) without notifying the County Council as a welfare authority. The Children's Department publicised the legal obligations upon such persons, supervised placements, inspected and regulated foster homes and so on. After the Adoption Act 1950, a similar duty to notify the Council rested upon anyone placing a child in another's care (with the same exceptions as above).

iii) Approved schools and remand homes: a child could be committed by the courts into the care of the Council either by a Fit Person Order, the effect of which was to put the child into the care of the Children's Department or by an Approved School Order, which placed the child under the care of managers at an Approved School. It should be noted that placements were made under the aegis of the Home Office nationwide, and that although the Council, through sub-committees of the Children's Committees, ran two approved schools, by no means all Middlesex children would be allocated places there. The Committee also ran two remand homes. The Children's Department were involved in briefing judges on cases: sometimes in bringing themselves in order to gain the powers by which to afford children under threat the care and protection they needed; and as the executive arm of the County Council on receipt of Fit Person Orders. Staff were also responsible for the supervision and after-care of "licensed" Middlesex children.

Adoption:
Until the Adoption Act 1926 legal adoption did not exist in English law. The 1926 Act gave no specific powers to local authorities, but the County Council was frequently, in its capacity as a local education authority, asked to act as a Guardian Ad Litem (that is to protect the child's rights before the law). When so requested, the County Council delegated this function to the officers of the Education Department. Other local education authorities could be approached instead in cases within their areas, or the Court's own probation officer might be appointed.

The Adoption of Children Regulation Act 1939 was designed to rectify some of the abuses of the 1926 Act and specifically, required adoption services to be approved and registered with local authorities. There were in fact only three such services in Middlesex in 1943 when the Act was finally implemented and only one, the Homeless Children's Aid and Adoption Society, remained in operation for any length of time thereafter. Also from 1943 certain duties of supervision of private adoptions were placed upon the welfare authorities, of which the MCC was one.

The duties of the Education Department relating to adoptions passed to the newly created Children's Department in 1948. In the next year was passed the Adoption of Children Act 1949, which was immediately consolidated with the previous legislation as the Adoption Act 1950. This Act made significant changes to adoption procedures: that which most particularly affected the County Council was the requirement that no adoption order could be made unless at least three months notice of intention to adopt had been given to the welfare authority, i.e. the County Council. Therefore from 1950 the County Council was notified of every intended adoption within the County, regardless of who the guardian ad litem was. Further, on receipt of a notice of an intended third party adoption (that is to say an adoption placement made by a third party, not a registered adoption society or local authority; adoptions by parents of their own children - very commonly done by women with illegitimate children and subsequently married) an officer of the Children's Department would commence supervision of the child or children either until the granting of the Court Order, or, if the supervision revealed the prospective adopters as unsuitable, until the end of the statutory period. The Adoption Act 1958 extended the powers of supervision to all adoptions and from this date the County Council had, in theory, some record of every adoption that took place in the County. The Act also enabled local authorities to act as adoption agencies in their own right.

Children in care:

The Local Government Act 1929 and the Poor Law Act 1930 abolished the Boards of Guardians and transferred their powers to local authorities. Those specifically relating to the poor and destitute became the responsibility of the newly formed Public Assistance Department of the Middlesex County Council, who took over the children and institutions formerly under the Guardians. Those large institutions still in use for children, such as the Chase Farm Schools in Enfield (formerly Edmonton Union) were re-employed, and the children placed in smaller and more personal homes favoured by the MCC.

The Council's role in child care was however greatly increased by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (under this Act a child was defined as one up to the age of 14, and a young person as being aged 14-16). Besides re-stating the procedures by which a child being the victim of wilful neglect or cruelty might be brought before the courts for its own safety, this Act gave a new importance to local education authorities by transferring to them the duty of bringing before the courts children and young persons in need of care and protection; the administration of remand homes and newly established approved schools; and of being a "fit person" to whom the courts could commit the children brought before them.

The 1948 Act had the effect of transferring these functions of the Education Department to the Children's Department. Children taken into care were now defined by the relevant sections of the Act. Section One permitted the local authority to assume the care of orphaned or deserted children and children whose parents or guardians were unable or unfit to take care of them: this section also contained the unprecedented proviso that the children should be returned to their parents or guardians if at all possible. Section Two permitted the local authority to assume all parental rights and responsibilities over a Section One child if it seemed that the circumstances which caused the child to be taken into care would be permanent. Section Five made it obligatory for the local authority to accept the care of a child committed to it as a "fit person" by a court under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

From 1918 the Middlesex County Council was responsible for maternity and child welfare services, and, from 1948, became responsible throughout the County for health centres, care of mothers and young children, midwifery, health visiting, home nursing, vaccination and immunisation, the ambulance service, the prevention of illness, care and after care and community mental health services. In 1945 the Council took over the school health service.

The County Health Service introduced a building programme for new or replacement clinics - 22 purpose built clinics with modern facilities were opened between 1948 and 1963. Immunisation programmes were expanded to include smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and poliomyelitis. Chiropody, geriatric, audiology and cerebral palsy clinics were provided. The ambulance service was improved with the building of a new central control equipped with radio, teleprinters and key and lamp units. Community services for the disabled were increased, including schools with special care units for severely handicapped children, adult training centres, including 3 in factories, days centres, hostels and so on. Training facilities were also introduced for health services staff including health visitors, district nurses, nursery nurses, midwives, mental welfare officers and teachers of the disabled.

Rapid local development, the tremendous increae in motor transport and national requirements such as Heathrow Airport all greatly influenced the Middlexsex County Council road programme; necessitating new and widened roads and dual carriageways. In the post-war period emphasis was laid upon relief of traffic congestion and reduction of accidents by junction improvements and the construction of pedestrian subways. A policy of landscaping and amenity treatment led to the planting of trees and shrubs and the extensive use of grass verges. Middlesex works undertaken by the Ministry of Transport completed the picture with two motorways, the M1 into Hendon and the M4 connection to London Airport.

The highways pattern for Middlesex stemmed from the radial roads originally built by the Romans - Watling Street to Saint Albans is now Edgware Road; Ermine Street to Lincoln is now Hertford Road and the western road to Silchester is now Staines Road. These radial routes remained of importance and were primarily supplemented by the Great West Road, Western Avenue, Watford and Barnet by-passes and the Great Cambridge Road which, in turn, have been linked by the North Circular Road, which traversed Middlesex from Kew Bridge to the Essex boundary. In 1889 the Council was responsible for 128 miles of road, as compared with 640 miles in 1964.

In 1889 County Council policy was directed by 72 members and administered under the leadership of Sir Richard Nicolson, Clerk of the County Council, and a handful of staff. The number of members had risen to 116 by 1952 and by 1965 the County staff numbered some 32,000, of whom 2,000 head office staff occupied the Guildhall and five other offices in Westminster. This indicates the tremendous increase in administrative work under successive Clerks of the County Council.

In the years between the two wars a semi-rural county became an almost completely urbanised area. The introduction of new legislation made ever increased demands upon members of the administrative staff, involving in later years monthly meetings of some 50 committees and sub-committees.

The Clerk's Department were responsible for monitoring Parliamentary legislation which might affect the work of the Council as well as preparing MCC bills for presentation to Parliament.

The decision to establish a County Supplies Department was made before the Second World War, but its foundation was delayed until 1947. In 1951 office and warehouse accommodation was obtained in Park Royal close to the transport workshops which came under its control. Turnover and responsibilities increased enormously between 1947 and 1965. Goods of every description were bought for all County services, including education. Service contracts were arranged and 370 vehicles, including cars used for official journeys, were controlled and maintained. In addition to central storage and distribution, a printing unit and a typewriter repair and maintenance service were established and the Central Transport section serviced vehicles and plant.

Rates are local taxes levied upon the occupiers of property to defray the expenses incurred by county councils and other local authorities in providing services. Up to 1925 there were two classes of rate: the general rate levied by the local council and the poor rate, levied by the Poor Law Guardians. Each rate was levied on the occupiers of all property in the area according to the annual value of the property. This annual value was determined by a committee of the Guardians called the 'assessment committee'. This system meant that the standard of valuation was not uniform throughout the county and that ratepayers might not be contributing equitably towards the cost of services.

The Rating and Valuation Act of 1925 entirely reformed the procedure. The County Council was required to establish a County Valuation Committee for the purpose of securing that as far as possible the standard of assessment throughout the County should be uniform. The local council was made the rating authority for its area. The Act also provided that there should be a general rate levied by each rating authority for the purpose of defraying the whole of the general expenditure within the particular area, so that the poor rate was no longer separately levied. Provision was made for an additional rate, called a 'special rate' to be levied on parts of an area where services were established that were not available elsewhere.

The valuation of property for rating purposes was transferred from local authorities to the Inland Revenue Department by the Local Government Act of 1948.

Harefield County Sanatorium began as a private home and estate used as a hospital for wounded Australian and New Zealander servicemen from 1915 to 1918. After the war the owners of the estate sold it to the Middlesex County Council who converted it into a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis. It was thought ideal for treating this disease because it was one of the highest points in Middlesex with plenty of fresh air. On the formation of the National Health Service it became a general hospital specialising in chest diseases.

Napsbury County Asylum was founded in 1898 by the Middlesex County Council and was constructed near London Colney, Hertfordshire, completed by 1905. It had space for 1,200 residents with long term mental illness.

Shenley Hospital, Radlett, Hertfordshire was opened on 31st May 1934 as part of the Middlesex Colony. Along with Napsbury Hospital it was established for the care of the mentally ill. The hospital was built on the site of Porters Park and provided accommodation initially for 1,047 and the full development of 2000 beds with 500 staff. It was planned on the villa system comprising of small nursing units ranging from 20-45 patients and had its own water supply treatment, sewage works and farm.

In 1889 County Council policy was directed by 72 members and administered under the leadership of Sir Richard Nicolson, Clerk of the County Council, and a handful of staff. The number of members had risen to 116 by 1952 and by 1965 the County staff numbered some 32,000, of whom 2,000 head office staff occupied the Guildhall and five other offices in Westminster. This indicates the tremendous increase in administrative work under successive Clerks of the County Council.

In the years between the two wars a semi-rural county became an almost completely urbanised area. The introduction of new legislation made ever increased demands upon members of the administrative staff, involving in later years monthly meetings of some 50 committees and sub-committees.

In most counties the chief function of the Standing Joint Committee was the control of the local police force, but, owing to the fact that Middlesex was within the Metropolitan Police Area under the jurisdiction of the Home Office, its Standing Joint Committee did not have these duties.

In 1888 most counties had shire halls, guildhalls and other buildings in which courts and quarter sessions were held and where the officers dealing with county administration were accommodated. It would have been impractical that one building should be under the control of two distinct bodies - the justices and the county council - but also unnecessary for the county council to have separate premises. The Standing Joint Committee was accordingly given charge of all matters relating to accommodation for the quarter sessions and all property which was used jointly with the county council.

The Committee also controlled the officers who served both the quarter sessions and the county council, such as clerks of the peace who were also clerks of the council. In addition the Committee considered the provision of petty sessional courthouses and appointed clerks to the justices.

From 1953 Magistrates' Court Committees were established which largely took over the work of the Standing Joint Committee.

The National Health Service Act, 1948, transferred the County Council's responsibility for the provision of a countywide hospital service to the new regional hospital boards. The Act came into force in July 1948. In the same month the National Assistance Act was enforced and transferred the responsibility of the County Councils for relieving financial distress to the National Assistance Board. Thus a new Welfare Department was set up as successor to the Public Assistance Department. The first meeting of the Welfare Committee took place on 5 July 1948.

Under Part III of the National Assistance Act the Welfare Department had the following functions:

1 Provision of residential accommodation for the aged and infirm

2 Provision of temporary accommodation for the homeless

3 Promotion of the welfare of people with disabilities such as blindness;

and under Part IV of the Act:

4 Administration of the registration of all homes for the elderly and disabled and responsibility to ensure the homes were suitably maintained

5 Registration of charities for the disabled

6 Provision of temporary protection of moveable property of certain persons

The following areas were used to administer these responsibilities within Middlesex:

Area 1: Enfield, Edmonton

Area 2: Southgate, Wood Green, Potters Bar, Friern Barnet

Area 3: Tottenham, Hornsey

Area 4: Hendon, Finchley

Area 5: Harrow

Area 6: Wembley, Willesden

Area 7: Ealing, Acton

Area 8: Uxbridge, Rusilip-Northwood, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton

Area 9: Brentford and Chiswick, Southall, Heston and Isleworth

Area 10: Twickenham, Staines, Feltham, Sunbury on Thames

On 1 April 1965 on the abolition of the Middlesex County Council the functions of the Welfare Department were transferred to the newly established London Boroughs.

The Education Department of the Middlesex County Council may be described as one of the most important, progressive and vital public services provided by the council throughout its history. The Middlesex Education Authority, following its inception in 1903, stood as a pioneer in numerous aspects of its work. Previously various attempts had been made to provide public education, since the passing of legislation in 1870. Before 1870 schools were run as private concerns including small private schools and dame schools, the endowed grammar schools, and the beginning of the development of the Public Schools, and for the very poor there existed schools run by religious organisations.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 marked a watershed in the history of English education. It was based on the principle of elementary education for all. It aimed 'to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send the children to the schools', and principally to provide instruction in basic literacy and numeracy until the age of 12. The Act provided for the division of England and Wales into school districts. Wherever surveys showed that existing voluntary schools could not provide enough places for all the school age children within their districts, the ratepayers elected school boards, which were required to supplement the existing schools with (what became known as) Board Schools. Funds to build and maintain were to come from fees, government grants and the rates. This was the starting point of local responsibility for education expenditure, and of the partnership of central and local authorities.

School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. They were given charge of all elementary and much secondary education throughout the country. The Act was in many respects a great step forward, but Part II did create administrative complications in elementary education, that particularly affected Middlesex. For all higher education the LEA was to be the county council or county borough. However, the local variations in the needs of elementary education demanded closer local responsibility, and it was also felt that well populated urban areas deserved some degree of autonomy. Part III of the Act therefore laid down that within a county council area any boroughs of population over ten thousand or urban districts of population over twenty thousand should themselves be the LEA for elementary education in that area. The county council was left as the authority for any parts of the county that remained outside these areas. This produced anomalies in Middlesex where the County Council was directly responsible for secondary and technical education throughout the County (rural and inner city), but was only the elementary education authority for rural and agricultural areas, where the need was radically different. Generally, the Act instigated a period of great educational activity, as the LEAs were obliged to survey the needs of their areas, to shape their policies and implement them. The subsequent legislation described below modified and extended the power of the county council.

1918 Education Act

The fundamental principle of this Act was the right of the intelligent child to receive extended education to suit his age and ability. The minimum leaving age was raised to 14, and authorities were to increase the number of their secondary schools. The counties and Part III authorities were to co-operate in producing 'joint schemes of education', and the Board of Education was to make annual grants-in-aid to authorities related to their recognised expenditure on education as a comprehensive service. It was this Act which founded the Burnham Committee as the joint negotiating body for teachers salaries, which had previously been decided by the individual employing authorities.

The Hadow Report 1926

The recommendations of this Report were in accordance with Labour Party policy, although Labour were no longer in power. It proposed that elementary schooling should be renamed 'primary schooling' and end at the age of 11 or 12; and that children should then progress to one or other of two types of secondary school: grammar schools or 'modern schools' which would have a simpler curriculum in preparation for employment at 14 or 15.

The Butler Act of 1944

This Act called for the raising of the school leaving age to 15; for primary and secondary education to be provided in separate schools; for the provision of nursery classes for under 5's; for special facilities for the mentally or physically disabled and for the opportunity of boarding school education where parents desired it or where special circumstances made it advisable. The Act ended the autonomy of Part III authorities and made County Councils full Local Education Authorities for primary, secondary and further education with the duty to prepare comprehensive Development Plans for education in their areas and to implement them. The over-riding responsibility for all stages of education now lay with the County Council.

1945-1965

The 1944 Act triggered off a period of intense educational activity. There was a pressing need for school building, to replace premises damaged during the Second World War and to provide separate primary and secondary schools demanded by the Act.

On 31 March 1965 the Middlesex County Council ceased to exist under the terms of the 1963 London Government Act. Education became the responsibility of newly created London boroughs covering the area of the former Middlesex.

The Education Department of the Middlesex County Council may be described as one of the most important, progressive and vital public services provided by the council throughout its history. The Middlesex Education Authority, following its inception in 1903, stood as a pioneer in numerous aspects of its work. Previously various attempts had been made to provide public education, since the passing of legislation in 1870. Before 1870 schools were run as private concerns including small private schools and dame schools, the endowed grammar schools, and the beginning of the development of the Public Schools, and for the very poor there existed schools run by religious organisations.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 marked a watershed in the history of English education. It was based on the principle of elementary education for all. It aimed 'to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send the children to the schools', and principally to provide instruction in basic literacy and numeracy until the age of 12. The Act provided for the division of England and Wales into school districts. Wherever surveys showed that existing voluntary schools could not provide enough places for all the school age children within their districts, the ratepayers elected school boards, which were required to supplement the existing schools with (what became known as) Board Schools. Funds to build and maintain were to come from fees, government grants and the rates. This was the starting point of local responsibility for education expenditure, and of the partnership of central and local authorities.

School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. They were given charge of all elementary and much secondary education throughout the country. The Act was in many respects a great step forward, but Part II did create administrative complications in elementary education, that particularly affected Middlesex. For all higher education the LEA was to be the county council or county borough. However, the local variations in the needs of elementary education demanded closer local responsibility, and it was also felt that well populated urban areas deserved some degree of autonomy. Part III of the Act therefore laid down that within a county council area any boroughs of population over ten thousand or urban districts of population over twenty thousand should themselves be the LEA for elementary education in that area. The county council was left as the authority for any parts of the county that remained outside these areas. This produced anomalies in Middlesex where the County Council was directly responsible for secondary and technical education throughout the County (rural and inner city), but was only the elementary education authority for rural and agricultural areas, where the need was radically different. Generally, the Act instigated a period of great educational activity, as the LEAs were obliged to survey the needs of their areas, to shape their policies and implement them. The subsequent legislation described below modified and extended the power of the county council.

1918 Education Act

The fundamental principle of this Act was the right of the intelligent child to receive extended education to suit his age and ability. The minimum leaving age was raised to 14, and authorities were to increase the number of their secondary schools. The counties and Part III authorities were to co-operate in producing 'joint schemes of education', and the Board of Education was to make annual grants-in-aid to authorities related to their recognised expenditure on education as a comprehensive service. It was this Act which founded the Burnham Committee as the joint negotiating body for teachers salaries, which had previously been decided by the individual employing authorities.

The Hadow Report 1926

The recommendations of this Report were in accordance with Labour Party policy, although Labour were no longer in power. It proposed that elementary schooling should be renamed 'primary schooling' and end at the age of 11 or 12; and that children should then progress to one or other of two types of secondary school: grammar schools or 'modern schools' which would have a simpler curriculum in preparation for employment at 14 or 15.

The Butler Act of 1944

This Act called for the raising of the school leaving age to 15; for primary and secondary education to be provided in separate schools; for the provision of nursery classes for under 5's; for special facilities for the mentally or physically disabled and for the opportunity of boarding school education where parents desired it or where special circumstances made it advisable. The Act ended the autonomy of Part III authorities and made County Councils full Local Education Authorities for primary, secondary and further education with the duty to prepare comprehensive Development Plans for education in their areas and to implement them. The over-riding responsibility for all stages of education now lay with the County Council.

1945-1965

The 1944 Act triggered off a period of intense educational activity. There was a pressing need for school building, to replace premises damaged during the Second World War and to provide separate primary and secondary schools demanded by the Act.

On 31 March 1965 the Middlesex County Council ceased to exist under the terms of the 1963 London Government Act. Education became the responsibility of newly created London boroughs covering the area of the former Middlesex.

The Education Department of the Middlesex County Council may be described as one of the most important, progressive and vital public services provided by the council throughout its history. The Middlesex Education Authority, following its inception in 1903, stood as a pioneer in numerous aspects of its work. Previously various attempts had been made to provide public education, since the passing of legislation in 1870. School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. On 31 March 1965 the Middlesex County Council ceased to exist under the terms of the 1963 London Government Act. Education in the former County of Middlesex became the responsibility of the newly created London boroughs covering the area of the former administrative county.

From the time of their creation in 1889, county councils had been obliged to provide small public library centres in schools, although these were gradually replaced by public library buildings. County library services were set up as a result of the passing of the Public Libraries Act in 1919. Middlesex County Council was responsible for the library service in the districts of Feltham, Friern Barnet, Harrow, Hayes and Harlington, Ruislip and Northwood, Potters Bar, Southgate, Staines, Sunbury-on-Thames, Uxbridge, Wembley and Yiewsley, and West Drayton.

The Education Department of the Middlesex County Council may be described as one of the most important, progressive and vital public services provided by the council throughout its history. The Middlesex Education Authority, following its inception in 1903, stood as a pioneer in numerous aspects of its work. Previously various attempts had been made to provide public education, since the passing of legislation in 1870. Before 1870 schools were run as private concerns including small private schools and dame schools, the endowed grammar schools, and the beginning of the development of the Public Schools, and for the very poor there existed schools run by religious organisations.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 marked a watershed in the history of English education. It was based on the principle of elementary education for all. It aimed 'to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send the children to the schools', and principally to provide instruction in basic literacy and numeracy until the age of 12. The Act provided for the division of England and Wales into school districts. Wherever surveys showed that existing voluntary schools could not provide enough places for all the school age children within their districts, the ratepayers elected school boards, which were required to supplement the existing schools with (what became known as) Board Schools. Funds to build and maintain were to come from fees, government grants and the rates. This was the starting point of local responsibility for education expenditure, and of the partnership of central and local authorities.

School Boards were abolished by the 1902 Education Act and replaced by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), which were, in effect, the county councils or county borough councils. They were given charge of all elementary and much secondary education throughout the country. Not until the 1944 Butler Act did the over-riding responsibility for all stages of education lie with the county council.

The Technical Education Committee of the Middlesex County Council was established following the passing of the 1889 Technical Instruction Act and 1891 Technical Instruction (Amendment) Act. The National Association for Technical and and Secondary Education sponsored the Acts to provide impetus for meeting deficiencies in the existing provision of technical and secondary education. The Acts empowered the (new) county councils to set up Technical Education Committees, to raise money through the rates for technical and secondary education, to give financial aid to institutions and to provide scholarships and exhibitions to students.

The Middlesex Technical Education Committee was one of the first such committees to be established. It's first meeting was held on 28th April 1892 under the chairmanship of Mr Littler (Chairman of the Council). Local Committee Districts were established together with a scheme to provide scholarships for boys to go to secondary schools/. Over the next decade the Technical Education Committee was responsible for establishing polytechnics, institutes, and secondary schools, and became heavily involved in their running. The curriculum's of the schools were also widened, and in 1899 the Committee became the authority for science and art classes in the county. Provision was also made for Middlesex scholars to attend schools and institutes outside of the county.

The Technical Education Committee was merged into the newly created Education Committee in May 1903. The formers work had been vital in establishing the high standard of secondary and technical education in Middlesex.

In 1907 the Local Education Authorities were made responsible for providing medical inspection; however, it was not until the Education Act 1918 that the majority of Local Education Authorities established school clinics. The Health Department of the MCC was responsible for the medical supervision of children in secondary and technical schools throughout the County, and for elementary schools where the County was the authority. The service was carried out by a staff of assistant school medical officers and trained nurses who combined the care and treatment of school children with their duties as assistant medical officers and health visitors under the Council's maternity and child welfare scheme.

Children attending elementary schools underwent four routine medical inspections at the ages of five, seven, ten and when they left school. In secondary school medical checks were performed annually. Clinics were established for the treatment of minor ailments and was given free of charge. Facilities also existed for dental and ophthalmic treatment. From 1942 orthopaedic defects were treated with assistance from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore.

Blind, deaf, physically disabled or epileptic children were sent to special schools. The Talbot Special School in Southall was the MCC day school for mentally defective children. A Child Guidance Clinic was established at Harrow. Two full time psychiatrists were appointed, working under the general supervision of the County Medical Officer.

A nominal charge was made for attendance at clinics and courses of treatment, although this was lifted altogether in cases of hardship. Parents were asked to make what contribution they could afford towards the cost of treatment and of surgical appliances, spectacles, braces and so on.

The Milk in Schools scheme allowed each child to obtain in school a third of a pint of milk daily at a cost of a halfpenny. The Second World War led to a great expansion in the school meals service. By 1943 the number of school children receiving school meals was 36,575.

The Public Assistance Department was set up under the 1929 Local Government Act which followed the recommendations of the Macclean Report. Under section 1 of the Act the functions of the existing Poor Law Guardians were transferred to the County Council from 1 April 1930. Section 4 of the Act required that a scheme for the administration of such functions be submitted to the Ministry of Health for approval. The Middlesex (Public Assistance) Scheme 1929 was approved and the first meeting of the Public Health, Housing and Public Assistance Committee sat on 16 January 1930.

The 1929 Act did not abolish the Poor Law system, but transferred its administrative functions. Poor Law had its origins in the 1601 Poor Relief Act which put the responsibility for providing relief onto the parish. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act established Boards of Guardians and grouped parishes together into Poor Law Unions for which the Guardians took responsibility. The single most important function of the Poor Law Guardians was to administer, regulate, and dispense relief to the poor and destitute. Other functions included child care (the 1872 Infant Life Protection Act and 1908 Children Act] and the administration of hospitals, care of the homeless and single mothers.

Under section 1 of the 1929 Act the Middlesex County Council took responsibility for the following: consideration and examination of applicants for relief, determination of the nature and amount of any relief granted, determination of any reimbursement to the council; making arrangements for the casual poor and administration of casual wards; and managing institutions and staff, visitation and inspection and making arrangements with other counties for joint use of institutions. The office of Director of Public Assistance was created. The Director was responsible to the Public Assistance Committee and Clerk of the County Council and had the following tasks: control of the staff dealing with Poor Law administration; keeping records and indexes; supply of goods, materials and provisions to the poor law institutions; arranging settlement, emigration, casuals, schemes for dealing with the able bodied unemployed; adoption, boarding out and apprenticeship of children and reporting to the Public Assistance Committee and Supervising Guardians meetings.

Before the 1929 Local Government Act the following Poor Law Unions existed in Middlesex: Brentford; Edmonton; (which had the out county parishes of Cheshunt and Waltham); Hendon; Staines; and Willesden. The parishes of Hampton, Hampton Wick and Teddington were in Kingston Union and the parishes of Finchley, Friern Barnet and South Mimms were in Barnet Union. The Middlesex (Public Assistance) Scheme 1929 divided the County into the following 6 areas for the purposes of administration: North Middlesex; North east Middlesex; Central Middlesex; Willesden; West Middlesex and South Middlesex.

Each area had a Guardians Committee of 18 members to administer the relief functions transferred to the County Council, namely to interview all applicants for relief and distribute it. The Committees also inspected and reported on institutions in their areas. In 1931 the Committees were delegated the function of making determinations of relief for the unemployed under the Unemployment Insurance (Transitional / Payments) Regulations 1931.

Middlesex County Council Act 1934:

In 1934 the Public Assistance Department was overhauled. Problems had arisen with the Guardians Committees because large scale migration into Middlesex had increased the number of relief applications. In addition the committees varied in their generosity towards applicants. In October 1932 the Ministry of Health criticised the out relief system in one Middlesex area and this resulted in County Scales and Regulations being introduced. When a Guardians Committee wished to deviate from these rules they had to submit their case to the Public Assistance Committee. As large numbers of submissions were made by certain committees the County Council decided it would be more effective for them to run the service directly.

The Middlesex County Council Act 1934 gave the County Council direct and complete control over the administration of relief by means of abolishing the Guardians Committees. The work of the Guardians Committees was assumed by a Relief Sub-Committee made up entirely of Council Members. The County was re-divided into 8 new areas, grouped in 4 sections: Area 1: North Middlesex and North East Middlesex; Area 2: East Middlesex; Area 3: North East Middlesex and Central Middlesex and Area 4: South Middlesex, West Middlesex and South West Middlesex.

Each area had an Area Officer and a Deputy Area Officer. The Area Officers were in charge of the staff in their regions and advised the County Council Committees on granting relief. The area offices were allocated to Edmonton (area 1), Tottenham (area 2), Kilburn (area 3) and Brentford (area 4). An Adjudicating Officer was appointed to each area to interview applicants for relief and investigate liable relations. Hospital Almoners sent financial details about patients to the Area Officers. Appeals by relief applicants could be made and were heard by the Sub Committees.

National Health Service Act 1946 and National Assistance Act 1946:
The National Health Service Act transferred the County Council's responsibility for the provision of a countrywide hospital service to the new regional hospital boards. The Act came into force in July 1948. In the same month the National Assistance Act was enforced and transferred the responsibility of the County Councils for relieving financial distress to the National Assistance Board. Thus the functions of the Public Assistance Department were radically overhauled and a new Welfare Department was set up as its successor. The first meeting of the Welfare Committee took place on 5 July 1948.

Under the National Assistance Act the Welfare Department had the following functions: provision of residential accommodation for the aged and infirm; provision of temporary accommodation for the homeless; promotion of the welfare of people with disabilities such as blindness; administration of the registration of all homes for the elderly and disabled and responsibility to insure the homes were suitably maintained; registration of charities for the disabled and provision of temporary protection of moveable property of certain persons.

The following areas were used to administer these responsibilities within Middlesex: Area 1: Enfield, Edmonton; Area 2: Southgate, Wood Green, Potters Bar, Friern Barnet; Area 3: Tottenham, Hornsey; Area 4: Hendon, Finchley; Area 5: Harrow; Area 6: Wembley, Willesden; Area 7: Ealing, Acton; Area 8: Uxbridge, Rusilip-Northwood, Hayes and Harlington, Yiewsley and West Drayton; Area 9: Brentford and Chiswick, Southall, Heston and Isleworth and Area 10: Twickenham, Staines, Feltham, Sunbury on Thames.

On 1 April 1965 on the abolition of the Middlesex County Council the functions of the Welfare Department were transferred to the newly established London Boroughs.

The Middlesex County Staff Club was founded in 1911 and was the first such organisation for County Council staff. The Club had 97 members and was admitted as a member of the National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO) in October 1911. A Secretary was appointed to carry out the administration of the Club. The majority of the Club's activities in the years before the First World War were social and sporting.

The Club fell into abeyance in 1914. In 1919 the staff of the County Council grew in number and the need for a united body was widely expressed. The Middlesex County Officers Association was formed and acknowledged by the County Council in May 1919. The Association was managed by an Executive Committee (a Council from 1949) which had representatives from all departments as well as ex-officio officers. Numerous sub-committees were set up in succeeding years until the Association was reconstructed in 1949. Thereafter the functions of the sub-committees were divided beween a handful of committees.

The single most important function of the Association was to represent the views of the members to the County Council. The mood of these consultations varied according to circumstances. During the lifetime of the Association all aspects of service came under discussion; grading; working hours; overtime; leave; rest rooms; post-entry training; long service awards. Particularly contentious was the debate over the County Council's membership of the Whitley Council. From 1960 onwards the Association was primarily concerned to safeguard the interests of staff in the approach to the implementation of the Report of the 1958 Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London.

The Association always took an active interest in sports and recreation, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. Cultural societies were formed from time to time. Within county offices restaurants and canteens were sponsored. From 1920 representatives were sent to NALGO conferences and in 1958 a Middlesex member was elected to the National Executive Committee.

Further information on McCance and Widdowson can be found in the volume McCance and Widdowson: a scientific partnership of 60 years, 1933 to 1993, ed. Margaret Ashwell, British Nutrition Foundation, 1993 (GC/97/D.1). See also Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol 41, 1995 (McCance) and Vol 48, 2002 (Widdowson) and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.