The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Staffordshire Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. The federation was one of the largest mergers of local authorities, involving the greatest number of previously separate urban authorities, to take place in England between the 19th century and the 1960s. The 1910 federation was the culmination of a process of urban growth and municipal change that started in the early 19th century.
Little interaction between the separate settlements occurred until the 18th century when the pottery industry began to expand rapidly. By the early 19th century, initial steps had been made to ensure greater co-operation between the Potteries towns over the issue of law and order. The county plan of 1888 made the first attempts to form the six towns into one county borough, following an act of Parliament that restructured the county system and created the administrative county of Staffordshire. Wishing to remain independent, the Potteries towns discussed uniting to form a separate county, the Staffordshire Potteries. When it became apparent that such a move would fail, the proposal was revised to one of uniting the six towns into one county borough. This plan failed after Hanley Corporation and Stoke Corporation could not agree on the location of the future administrative centre. Instead, only Hanley gained county borough status because the other towns did not meet the criteria for such designation.
The first federation attempt was made in 1900 with a resurrection of the county plan. In 1902, Hanley Council led attempts to form an expanded county borough, but disagreement over the complex financial issues of rates, assets and loans caused Fenton to pull out, quickly followed by Burslem and Stoke, and the proposal was abandoned in 1903. The second and final federation process, between 1905 and 1910, was instigated by Longton Town Council with support from Stoke and Hanley and opposition from Fenton, Tunstall and Burslem. Issues again arose over the financial settlement and discussions continued during the progress of the Federation Bill through Parliament. The bill was passed in the House of Commons and was still under debate in the House of Lords when the six towns announced that they had come to an agreement. Passed in December 1908, the act came into force on 31 March 1910. The new Stoke-on-Trent was a county borough from then until 1974. In addition, city status was granted to Stoke-on-Trent by King George V on 1July1925.
Background
By the early part of the 19th century the six towns that eventually became Stoke-on-Trent—Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton—were all established settlements. Despite occupying only a small geographic area and all based around the pottery industry, there was little political or social co-operation between them.
Prior to the 19th century, local government remained largely based on the parochial and manorial systems in use since the Middle Ages. In the Potteries towns this led to each of the townships having varying forms of government. Tunstall was parochially within Wolstanton and manorially part of Tunstall manor; Burslem, although manorially a part of Tunstall manor, parochially was part of Burslem parish. It was through these failing regimes, such as the 1813 lapse of the manorial court of Tunstall, that the long process towards federation began.
The earliest changes were seen in Hanley and Burslem when the Hanley Market Act 1813 (53 Geo. 3. c. cxv) gave statutory control of Hanley market to a board of trustees outside manorial control. The Hanley and Shelton Improvement Act 1825 (6 Geo. 4. c. lxxiii) and the Burslem Markets, Lighting and Police Act 1825 (6 Geo. 4. c. cxxxi), for Hanley and Burslem respectively, gave a board of commissioners control over policing and lighting along with the ability to levy rates for these purposes. Important steps as they were, none were directed towards any form of co-operation between Burslem, Hanley or any other of the Potteries towns.
Early proposals for co-operation The first tentative step towards co-operation was taken in 1817, when a meeting in Hanley mooted "future joint public meetings called by the head constables of the various settlements to be held in Hanley". This was the first instance of a call for greater law and order in the Potteries, although there seemed to be little interest in other forms of co-operation.
Apart from the establishment of the boards of commissioners in Hanley and Burslem, no further changes occurred until the 1830s when passing of the Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45) sparked renewed interest in incorporation. The act created the parliamentary borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, which would elect two members to Parliament. Together with Stoke-upon-Trent itself, the parliamentary borough also comprised Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Lane End, Shelton, the hamlet of Sneyd, Rushton Grange and Tunstall. The significance of the act was that for the first time and for one important reason only, through the election of Members of Parliament, the townships of the Potteries effectively became one. Shortly after the Reform Act came into effect, a Municipal Corporations Bill was introduced which proposed that the new parliamentary boroughs should be granted charters of incorporation. The bill failed with the prorogation of that Parliament, while the Potteries were excluded from the reforms of the later Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will. 4. c. 76). Interest in incorporation was sufficient for several meetings on the subject to take place; the Staffordshire Advertiser reported after one meeting in Burslem that incorporation would lead to one town having undue control over the affairs of the others, a theme that was to recur for many years. The same meeting revisited a topic raised pre–1820, the promotion of law and order in the Potteries, and called for the appointment of a stipendiary magistrate.
Only two years later the people of Fenton voted in favour of incorporation of the borough, while further meetings in Stoke and Burslem came out against incorporation but reiterated calls for the appointment of a stipendiary magistrate. Later the same year, a further call for better policing was made at a meeting chaired by the Duke of Sutherland. These calls were heard and in 1839 two acts of Parliament were passed, the Staffordshire Potteries Stipendiary Justice Act 1839 (2 & 3 Vict. c. 15) and the Staffordshire Potteries Improvement and Police Act 1839 (2 & 3 Vict. c. xliv). This legislation created additional boards of commissioners for Fenton, Longton and Stoke, with the same powers given to Hanley and Burslem by the 1825 acts. Following these amendments to local policing and justice, the discussion of co-operation and federation between the various townships was subdued for several decades.
County plan of 1888
Changes in local government between 1840 and 1888 saw the end of the parochial and manorial systems. The townships of Stoke-upon-Trent, Penkhull and Boothen were formed into the borough of Stoke-upon-Trent in 1874 while Longton and Lane End became the borough of Longton in 1865. Hanley and Shelton became the borough of Hanley in 1857 and Burslem became a borough in 1878. In Tunstall (1855) and Fenton (1873), the boards of commissioners were superseded by local boards of health.
Introduction of the Local Government Bill in March 1888 caused much debate in the Potteries about the position of the towns under the proposed council structure. The bill proposed the creation of county councils across England and Wales and the granting of county borough status to towns with a population exceeding 100,000. County borough status would allow such places to govern themselves independently of the county council.
Consensus in the Potteries was against coming under the control of Staffordshire County Council and the idea developed of the Potteries seeking to become a county in their own right. Accordingly, a proposal was submitted to the Local Government Board on 2 July 1888 for the creation of a county of the Staffordshire Potteries. However, on 9 July 1888 it was proposed to amend the bill to reduce the population requirement for county borough status from 100,000 to only 50,000, which if adopted would have allowed Hanley to become a county borough of its own right, while the rest of the towns would have come under the control of Staffordshire. On 13 July 1888, Captain Heathcote, MP for Staffordshire North West, moved an amendment to the bill that "[t]he district of the Staffordshire Potteries, comprising the municipal boroughs of Hanley, Stoke-upon-Trent, Longton, and Burslem, the urban sanitary district of the Fenton Local Board of Health, and the urban sanitary district of the Tunstall Local Board of Health, the six towns comprising the Pottery District should be formed into a county". In response, the President of the Local Government Board, Charles Ritchie, proposed the matter be resolved by way of a provisional order bill in the next parliamentary session and that he would undertake to introduce such a bill. William Woodall, MP for Hanley, supported the amendment but accepted Ritchie's assurance. However, he was also bound to protect Hanley's interests and moved that Hanley be added to the proposed list of county boroughs under the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill, but would surrender that right if all of the Potteries were to become a county borough or county in their own right. Ritchie re-iterated his hope that the matter could be resolved by way of provisional order bill and with that both amendments were withdrawn.
The Local Government Act 1888 received royal assent on 13 August 1888 with Hanley listed among those places to be granted county borough status. The corporation of Hanley vacillated for several months as to how best to proceed, then in February 1889 opted for Hanley to take its county borough status, effectively killing both the county proposal and the county borough proposal. Why Hanley corporation made such a decision is not recorded, but it was reported in the Staffordshire Sentinel of 5 February 1901 that it was because Stoke Corporation insisted that the administrative centre of the new county be in Stoke, not Hanley, and this was something that Hanley could not agree to.
The following year Longton Town Council proposed the formation of a county borough comprising Stoke, Fenton and Longton but the proposal came to nothing.
First federation proposal 1900–1903 In December 1900, Stoke Town Council proposed a meeting with "a view to federal action" and issued invitations to the boroughs of Burslem, Hanley, Longton, and Newcastle-under-Lyme; the urban districts of Audley, Fenton, Kidsgrove, Smallthorne, and Tunstall; and the rural districts of Stoke and Wolstanton. The parishes of Chesterton, Chell, Goldenhill, Milton and Silverdale were also invited. The meeting took place in February 1901 and resolved "that it was desirable in the interests of North Staffordshire to form a federation of local authorities", thereby indicating a preference for implementation of the county plan. Legal opinion suggested that the county plan was unlikely to succeed and that a more viable proposition would be to expand the county borough of Hanley to include the other Potteries towns. Accordingly, in March 1902, representatives of the four boroughs and two urban districts met and agreed unanimously that "the principle of federation of the Pottery towns by the constitution of a county borough should be adopted, subject to the resolutions passed by each authority for the preservation of their respective interests."