Brighton a municipal borough in 1864

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

d) INCORPORATION AND DISSOLUTION: By the 1850s many inhabitants believed that the town commissioners were too many in number, that the financial qualifications were too high, that the 1825 Act was not flexible enough to allow for change (in particular that there was no power to make bye-laws), and that the commissioners had been extravagant.
The commissioners themselves resolved to obtain a new Act in 1853, but the ‘incorporationists’ won the day following a Privy Council inquiry, and when the town was incorporated as a municipal borough with an elected council in 1854 the town commissioners became largely redundant. The 1855 Brighton Commissioners Transfer Act dissolved the town commissioners from 29 May 1855 and vested all their powers, privileges, liabilities and property, including the Royal Pavilion , the market and the Town Hall, in the new corporation. The last meeting was held on 28 May 1855. A bust of Lewis Slight, the clerk to the town commissioners from 1826 until 1854, may be found in the Town Hall, and his portrait in Brighton Museum .

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.