In 1900 the county borough absorbed the bulk of the neighbouring Castleton Urban District by mutual agreement.

Under the charter of 1856 the borough was governed by a town council consisting of a mayor, ten aldermen and thirty councillors.

The aldermen were elected to a six-year term by the council itself, with half the aldermanic bench retiring every three years.

[4] In 1933 the bulk of Norden Urban District was added to the borough as a twelfth ward, and the council consisted of thirty-six councillors and twelve aldermen until its abolition in 1974.

[7] For the first seven decades of the borough's existence it was dominated by the Liberal Party, who maintained a large majority.

Conservatives formed an opposition grouping, and Socialist and Independent Labour Party councillors appeared from the end of the nineteenth century.

From the nineteen thirties the Liberal hegemony began to be challenged, with an increase in the number of Labour and Conservative members, and there was no one grouping in control.

The final elections to the county borough council were held in 1972, with members holding office until abolition two years later.

[41] The blazon was as follows: Argent a wool-pack encircled by two branches of the cotton-tree flowered and conjoined proper, a bordure sable, charged with eight martlets of the field.

Rochdale, in common with many British municipalities, took over the ownership and provision of a number of utility services.

In 1824 the Rochdale Gas Light and Coke Company opened a gasworks at what would later be Dane Street.

By 1948 the undertaking supplied the County Borough of Rochdale and the urban districts of Milnrow, Wardle and Whitworth.

In 1896 the borough council resolved to establish a municipal electricity supply to the town, and in particular to power the tramway system.

By the 1930s the corporation electricity department also supplied the neighbouring urban districts of Littleborough, Milnrow, Norden, Wardle and Whitworth.

In 1911 Rochdale made agreements with two neighbouring municipalities, the borough of Bacup and Milnrow Urban District, to operate the tram networks they had constructed.