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The Borough Extension, 1877
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In 1877 the Borough Extension Act brought the suburbs within the town boundaries to create Greater Nottingham. During the 1850s development in the open fields quickly brought physical overlap between the town and its surrounding industrial suburbs. Already the villages were rapidly growing into small towns: in 851 Basford had a population of 10,098, Raford of 12,637, Sneinton of 8,440 and Lenton 5,589. As in Nottingham, the pace of growth had brought environmental problems. J. R. Marin, the assistant commissioner who reported on Nottingham in 1844, also visited Basford where he found ‘numerous courts and alleys, closed at the end’ in the newly built part of the village, and a sewer system ‘of inferior arrangement and construction.’ Basord established a local board of health under the terms of the 1858 Public Health Act, but Radford was reluctant to take any such measures, and a Board was not formed until 1873. Under the circumstances the death rate was high, and living conditions in some areas were almost as bad as in Nottingham. However, the pace of growth slackened in the 1850s as developers turned their attention to the newly enclosed land; indeed, the value of building land in Sneinton reputedly fell from one pound to one shilling (5p) a square yard. Even so, by 1871 Radford, with a population of 15,127, was the second largest in Nottinghamshire, larger than Newark and Mansfield and the five villages had a combined population of 51,000. It was anomalous to have houses on either side of Alfreton Road in different parishes and under different administrative control, or to have streets running out of Nottingham into Sneinton divided for the purposes of local government. In 1861 Salmon suggested that Radford and Sneinton ‘may be considered as suburbs of Nottingham.’ With 51,000 people spread across 11,532 acres, compared to Nottingham where 87,390 people were confined within 1,933 acres, here was a conurbation waiting to be confirmed.
Locally it had long been recognised that, once the land surrounding Nottingham was opened up for development, the parishes of Radford, Lenton and Sneinton would soon be indistinguishable from the town. As one author commented in 1843, Hyson Green was ‘separated from Nottingham by Lammas land, in which the burgesses of Nottingham have common right; should this privilege for any equivalent consideration ever be surrendered, and the intermediate land be made available for building, it is highly probable that Hyson green would soon be united with Nottingham.’ As so often occurred in Victorian England, problems of water supply and sewerage disposal proved to be the catalyst which brought town and suburbs together. The River Leen was a common sewer for Nottingham, Bulwell, Radford and Lenton. Joint action was needed to eradicate what was increasingly seen as an unacceptable hazard to health and prosperity. To try to achieve this, in 1872 the Nottingham and Leen District Sewerage Board was set up as a joint board with representatives of the town and the villages. The board was not a success. It fell to petty territorial disputes, and by 1876 Nottingham Corporation had decided that the most effective way of dealing with sewerage problems would be to promote a boundary extension. A single authority, or so it was argued, would not have to face the conflicts arising from the divided loyalties which were hampering the work of the Sewerage Board.
Lammas land refers to land that, in medieval England, was private property but became subject to common rights of pasturage (grazing rights) from Lammas Day (August 1st) until the start of spring. This meant that local villagers, tenants, and others could graze their animals on the land after the harvest.
Negotiation designed to secure a boundary extension opened in April 1876 with the appointment of a committee ‘to enquire into the necessity of the Town Council taking steps to extend to boundaries of the Borough. After prolonged discussions, the Bill went to the House of Commons in December. Not surprisingly, the principal justification was the polluted state of the River Leen. The Bill received Royal Assent in June 1877, and the new borough came into being on the 1st of November. The parishes of Radford, Lenton, Sneinton, Basford and Bulwell, and Wilford, north of the Trent were added to Nottingham, and the area of the town grew to 10,935 acres. The extended town had a population of 186,575 in 1881 and stood eighth in the rank of English towns based on population size. It was now a major provincial town.
Centenary History of Nottingham
Edited by Prof. John Beckett 2006
Page 260