Romford Rural District

From the Wikipedia page

Romford Rural District was a local government district in south west Essex, England from 1894 to 1934. It surrounded, but did not include, Romford which formed a separate urban district.[1] During the life of the district the area changed in use from rural farm land to sprawling London suburb and in 1926 much of it was removed to form new urban districts.

It was created a rural district in 1894 by the Local Government Act 1894, based on the Romford rural sanitary district. Before 1894 the part of Romford parish corresponding to the town was covered a local board of health. Under the 1894 legislation the parish was split with the former board of health district becoming the Romford Urban parish the remainder formed the Romford Rural parish. The former also constituted the Romford Urban District and the latter was a component parish within the larger rural district. The arrangement did not last, and in 1900 the two parishes were abolished and their former area used to create a Romford parish which constituted the enlarged Romford Urban District.[2]

In 1911 the rural district had a combined area of 29,720 acres (120 km²) and consisted of the following parishes:


 * Noak Hill
 * Havering-atte-Bower
 * Dagenham
 * Great Warley
 * Hornchurch
 * Upminster
 * Cranham
 * Rainham
 * Wennington

In 1926 the parish of Hornchurch was removed to form Hornchurch Urban District and the parish of Dagenham, which included much of the vast Becontree estate, was removed to form Dagenham Urban District. In 1934 the district was abolished and the remaining parishes transferred to neighbouring districts:

The area today forms parts of the London Borough of Havering and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in Greater London. A boundary change in 1993 transferred the remaining parts of Great Warley to the Brentwood Borough of Essex.