The is an area in in 1857 (under the
County And Borough Of Police Act 1856 ).
Under the
Local Government Act 1888 , the Soke became an
Administrative County in its own right, with an elected
County Council taking over the administrative functions of the Quarter Sessions. From 1894 the Soke was divided into three local government districts - the
Municipal Borough of Peterborough, and the two rural districts of
Peterborough and
Barnack .
It had a very small population for a county (about 75,000), and so in 1965 the administration was merged with that of the neighbouring small county of
Huntingdonshire to form the slightly more viable administrative county of
Huntingdon And Peterborough . In
1974 the area became part of the
Non-metropolitan County of
Cambridgeshire .
Since 1998, an area broadly corresponding to the Soke, now called the
City Of Peterborough , is a unitary authority. Because of intervening development and a
New Town project in Peterborough, this has a much larger population than the Soke had.
