By the 19th century, the East End of London had expanded to the eastern boundary with Essex , and the Tower division had reached a population of over a million. The railway in the Victorian Age had the greatest impact on Middlesex and accelerated the building of new suburbs, strung along the lines, until the suburbs met each other and merged in the grand conurbation thus created. Industry followed, and though Middlesex was left behind in the early industrial revolution, it overtook the heartlands of Lancashire , Lanarkshire and Yorkshire when electrical machines replaced the steam-driven power-shafts that fed the northern factories.
The rapid urbanisation of Middlesex has made it a laboratory of experimentation in administrative innovation, allowing systems to be tested there which were later used or rejected elsewhere as urbanisation proceeded apace. The City of London has been self-governing since before the Norman conquest; one of William the Conqueror's earliest charters was a charter in English confirming the rights of the city.
During the Middle Ages the City created a mayoralty and gave a role in government to its trade guilds, both of which remain, and repeatedly adapted its ancient institutions to create the multiplicity of levels and institutions the Corporation still has. Richard I granted all Middlesex to the city in fee; the city governed Middlesex and appointed two sheriffs over it and collected its taxes in return for a fixed payment to the Crown.
The right to appoint sheriffs ended only in Police forces were first introduced here: in came the Bow Street Runners and in , the first official police force in Great Britain, the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Board of Works was created in to take charge of the dire state of public infrastructure in the metropolis around London, later to be replaced by the London County Council. The latter was intended by Lord Salisbury as one-off municipal authority council for the particular needs of the conurbation, but the plan became the model for such "county councils" across England and Wales, all created in Even this was deemed inadequate by , when a "Greater London Council" was created covering almost all of Middlesex and parts of neighbouring shires and which endured for twenty years.
The "Greater London Authority" is another sui generis innovation created with the same intent. Middlesex does not have a universally accepted county town. Brentford , specifically New Brentford, claims the title and seems most commonly accepted as the county town. Brentford may make a claim on the basis that the freeholders of the county met there, at The Butts, to elect to Parliament their two knights of the shire.
Even so, before Brentford was established as the place, the county electors had met on Hampstead Heath of which "Parliament Hill" on the heath was itself an ancient meeting place pre-dating the Anglo-Saxon Conquest.
The Quarter Sessions, which governed the shire, met in Clerkenwell , a small distance outside the City of London, but now long absorbed into the London conurbation and the County Assizes for Middlesex were held at the Old Bailey in the City of London itself.
Where the common law county court, the shire-moot, met in its effective days is uncertain. The last notable judicial sitting was to pass the outlawry on John Wilkes, "at The Three Tuns in Brook-street in the parish of Holborn". The "Ossulstone" at Tyburn is regarded as a likely candidate for the earliest "shiremoots".
The county electors which last met at Brentford were in technical terms the "shiremoot", whether they knew so or not. The Flag of Middlesex portrays three seaxes beneath a Saxon crown; a seax echoes the name of the county 'Middelseaxe and the crown its ancient origin.
A new, distinctive shield was officially granted to the Middlesex County Council in after it was noted that the county councils of Essex, Middlesex and London were all using the same blazon of arms, which was:.
The new shield soon became associated with Middlesex. A white flag with the shield is flown from the tower of the Middlesex Guildhall every year on Middlesex Day.
A banner of the arms has been registered as the county flag of Middlesex by the Flag Institute. Middlesex Day' is the 16th May in each year; the county day. At Albuhera the 57th West Middlesex Regiment held back and defeated a vastly superior French assault, standing under shot and shell without moving a step backwards; the dead were found still in their unbroken ranks.
Layers of London is a groundbreaking crowd-sourced mapping project that records the rich layers of London's heritage. British History Online is a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland. Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience. Recent publications. St Clement Danes, It includes the City of London, which was self-governing from the thirteenth century. London's northwestern suburbs steadily covered large parts of Middlesex, especially following the coming of the railways.
The administrative and historic boundaries around Middlesex diverged very early on, with the recognition of the City of London as an independent county borough. During the next few decades the county became almost entirely urbanised by suburbs of London. Towards the end of the period, many of the boroughs in the area were demanding independence from Middlesex County Council as county boroughs, which if granted would have left Middlesex County Council controlling an area with three distinct and unconnected fragments - in the west, the south-east and the north of the county.
Instead, in , nearly all the remainder of Middlesex was subsumed by the new Greater London except the Potters Bar district; which was ceded to Hertfordshire, and the district of Spelthorne, which were ceded to Surrey.
Middlesex is still used as a placename, and exists in the name of such organisations as the Middlesex County Cricket Club or Middlesex University.
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