The was an
Administrative County and
Ceremonial County of
England from
1889 to
1965 . It bordered
Middlesex to the north and west,
Essex to the north-east,
Kent to the south-east and
Surrey to the south.
It was created as part of the general introduction of
County Council s and was governed by the
London County Council . It did not cover all of today's
Greater London , but only the central part. It covered the same area that the
Metropolitan Board Of Works (which had run London's roads, bridges, etc) had covered, specifically parts of
Middlesex ,
Surrey and
Kent - corresponding to today's
London Borough s of
Camden ,
Greenwich ,
Hackney ,
Hammersmith And Fulham ,
Islington ,
Kensington And Chelsea ,
Lambeth ,
Lewisham ,
Southwark ,
Tower Hamlets ,
Wandsworth and
Westminster .
In addition to being an administrative county with a
County Council , the Act also provided that "such portion of the administrative county of London as forms part of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, shall
{Link without Title} be severed from those counties, and form a separate county for all non-administrative purposes by the name of the county of London".
area, to show the difference in size with post-
1965 Borough boundaries]]
The county was abolished in
1965 and was replaced by the much larger
Greater London , which took in nearly all of Middlesex, along with areas previously in
Surrey ,
Kent ,
Essex and
Hertfordshire .
The area of the old County of London is now sometimes known as
Inner London . Since the
Greater London Council was not an education authority, but London County Council had been, an
Inner London Education Authority was constituted to continue this role for the area of the old County of London, and this continued until
1990 .
In
1900 , eleven years after its foundation, the
London Government Act divided the County of London into 28
Metropolitan Borough s. These replaced the ancient parish
Vestries and district boards as the second tier of local government. When the County of London was abolished in
1965 these metropolitan boroughs were merged to form 12
London Borough s.
