Liberty and Locality: Parliament, Permissive Legislation, and Ratepayers' Democracies in the Nineteenth Century

This is a study of local government and permissive legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. In the eighteenth century, every locality that wished to improve or police its streets had to obtain its own private Act of Parliament. By the nineteenth century, when the construction of a habitable urban environment had become a matter of urgency, Parliament had recourse to "permissive" or "adoptive" legislation. Parliament thus facilitated, but did not require, local action, and as long as the i...