LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Part of the Board's work was taken over by the Birmingham, Tame & Rea District Drainage Board in 1876, but the drainage of Handsworth through Aston and the cleansing of 'Shire Brook' (no accepted name), the removal of night soil and refuse, inspection of wells and 6318 middens and 47 slaughterhouses, and control of infectious diseases, remained. The first Isolation Hospital was in rural Witton, and a later one in Perry Lane. The Board spawned Libraries, Baths, and Fire Committees. Aston had a library from 1877 (the front room of the Board house) and Robert K. Dent was its librarian. It is strange that this admired historian of Birmingham and elsewhere wrote only one short article about Aston.

From 1882 he reigned and wrote in the library of the new Board Offices (later Aston Council House) at Albert/Witton Roads corner. A branch reading room was opened at Aston Cross in 1880 and the Carnegie Library there in 1903. Public Baths were built on Victoria Road: the Public Office plans had been for an impressive if over-ornate complex including baths, but these were axed and a plainer building was approved. Aston Fire Brigade was formed in 1879, the first station and steam powered horse drawn pump being at the Board's wharf off Chester Street: the later station and twelve firemen's cottages were on Lichfield Road opposite Vyse Street.

Other stations were provided next to the Council House and in Villa Street. A refuse destructor was built at the wharf in 1891 and an electricity generating station on Rocky Lane with a sub-station in Alma Street. Aston never acquired its own gas, as Windsor Street Gasworks were so conveniently near. At the Aston Union Workhouse (now Highcroft Hall Hospital) were 300 inmates; 160 children attended the workhouse school. Aston Guardians' scale of expenditure was said to be lower than that of any other Union in the country !

Aston Manor's attempts to achieve incorporation were twice frustrated by Birmingham, but in 1885 it did gain the status of a Parliamentary Borough. A Petty Sessions Court and police station were built on Victoria Road, and in 1899 another station on Lozells Road. Birmingham's opposition to Aston's wishes was based on the manor's geographical position: though the Borough (which became a city in 1889) did not covet Aston, that overbuilt and underprivileged area did bar the way to the desired green expenses of Handsworth and Erdington

The City withdrew its objections when the principle was accepted that the conferring of borough status on the Urban District would not prejudice Birmingham's next phase of expansion. So in 1903 the Borough of Aston Manor came into existence, acquiring the Urban District Council's functions, property and offices. It had a population of 80,000 and 42 miles of streets pave largely with crumbling macadam.

In 1905 the new Bishopric of Birmingham included Aston Parish, and a Suffragan Bishop of Aston was appointed. That year also saw the combining of the Unions of Birmingham, Aston, and Kings Norton and Northfield in the establishment of Monyhull Hall as a colony for mental defectives: the three boards became one in 1912, when all were within Greater Birmingham.

Having absorbed Saltley and Little Bromwich in 1891 the City began to bribe its neighbours to accept annexation. Aston Manor had a poor population and no room for expansion - indeed it had hoped to improve its finances by absorbing and developing Witton: offered differential rating and improved services, Astonians agreed to join Greater Birmingham and did so in 1911. Thereafter the Corporation of Birmingham was responsible for every part of local government except administration of the Poor Law, which it acquired two decades later.