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98
In the year 1888, as before stated, the Metropolitan
Board of Works was abolished, anil the London County
Council, a body elected directly by the ratepayers, established
in lieu thereof.
Until the year 1894, the board had no power to elect a
permanent Chairman, the Metropolis Management Act requiring
that at each meeting a chairman should bo elected to
preside over its proceedings. Nevertheless it became a custom
lor the representative member when present to take the Chair,
ex officio. When absent—and this not unfrequently occurred,
the duties of the representative being exceedingly onerous and
occupying a great deal of his time—the Chair was taken by
some other member; Mr. Barnett Isaacs, a Christchurch
member, being for several years regarded almost as the
Chairman, then, on the decease of that gentleman, Mr. F. W.
Thorn, also a Christchurch member, and Mr. Richard Hunt,
of St. Saviour's, were successively chosen to fill the office and
until their death in each instance.
The Local Government Act, 1894, however, known as the
Parish Councils' Act and relating chiefly to urban and rural
districts, by a special section applicable to the Metropolis,
enabled and required the several Boards of Works and
administrative Vestries in London to elect a Chairman who
should be subject to annual appointment, such election to
take place at the first meeting after the annual election of
members. In accordance therewith the Board has successively
appointed Mr. F. Baxter (1894—6), Mr. Henry J. Coles
(1890-7), Mr. George J. Newton (1897—8), Mr. W. E. Hill
(1898—9), Mr. W. S. Hale (1899—1900), Mr. 11. W. Bowers
(1900), each Chairman being ex officio and during the term
of his office a Justice of the Peace on taking the oaths as by
law required.
The Board, at the commencement of its proceedings, was
unfortunate in being the inheritor of a law suit which ended
disastrously, the facts being as follows:—In the year 1858,
the Cordwainers' Company of the City of London, who were
the owners of premises adjoining Horse Shoe Alley, Bankside,
proceeded to erect a wall on the west side of that thoroughfare,
in such manner as to encroach, so it was alleged, upon the
public way. The Commissioners for the Clink Liberty held
that the thoroughfare was a public way from the fact of it
having been used for more than GO years as such, and from it