Gloucester was, from 1894 to 1974, a rural district in the administrative county of Gloucestershire, England.
[1][2] The district did not include the City of Gloucester, which was a separate county borough.
It was governed by a directly elected Rural District Council (RDC), which replaced the Rural Sanitary Authority that had comprised the poor law guardians for the area.
Under the Local Government Act 1929 County Councils were given the duty of reviewing all urban and rural districts within their area.
[3] Between 1951 and 1967, a number of suburban areas adjacent to Gloucester were removed from the Rural District, when the city boundary was expanded.