LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Duddeston and Nechells had their own Overseers of the Poor and the Highways within the Civil Parish of Aston from the late C16th. Neglect of all roads except turnpikes and churchways, the absence of surface drains, lights, and bridges, brought the appointment in 1829 of 33 Streets Commissioners - sixty inglorious years after Birmingham's. They had power to watch, drain, light, pave, and regulate their streets, and also to sell gas. They levied rates and employed men: the inadequacy of the workforce is typified by the performance of the Acting Surveyor quoted above: they spent more than they collected, yet improvements were few. There were no building regulations, no duties to provide either piped water or waste drains.

The proposal to include Duddeston and Nechells in the intended Borough of Birmingham was vehemently opposed by four gentlemen who owned the manorial rights: but they were defeated, and when the town was incorporated in 1838 the hamlets were included. Six Councillors were allotted to two newly created wards of roughly equal population, which put north Duddeston into Nechells for electoral purposes. The functions of the Streets Commissioners in Duddeston and Nechells as in Birmingham Parish were unaffected, and in 1845 the former gained new powers: not until 1852 were all these unrepresentative officials dispossessed.

The long connection with Aston was not yet severed: until 1911 the Parish Guardians still administered the Poor Law in the wards, having their offices on Vauxhall Road, at Union Street. Thereafter the Birmingham Union operated until its abolition in 1930, when the City Council became fully master in its own house (a happy state of affairs that was to last less than two decades!)

The Borough Council had police powers from 1842, and five years later a station was opened in Duke Street. Woodcock Street public baths were opened in 1860. The Commissioners had been obliged to maintain turn-pikes on which Companies levied tolls: the Council ensured that the 1851 Act empowered them to remove tollgates to sites outside the Borough. On the Castle Bromwich Turnpike little expense was involved as Saltley Gate was already there: but the gates at Hyde Park Corner were removed amid local rejoicing. Gosta Green Library opened in 1866, and Bloomsbury (Duddeston) Library in 1892. Police and Fire Stations were built alongside, a Dispensary in Thimble Mill Lane and a Police Station on Nechells Park Road. Washing Baths were provided on Francis Street, and a recreation ground was made on Gas Depot land off Nechells Place (1878).

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