The district was formed by the Metropolis Management Act 1855 from the following Middlesex civil parishes and places:[4] The district was governed by the Holborn District Board of Works, which consisted of forty-nine elected vestrymen: twenty-four elected for the parish of St Andrew Holborn above Bars; nine for St George the Martyr; nine for Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents, and Ely Place; six for St Sepulchre and one for Glasshouse Yard.

[6] Holborn District was originally within the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works and nominated one member to the MBW.

The Board of Works was administered from the old Holborn Town Hall, Gray's Inn Road.

[7] The district was abolished in 1900, when the County of London was divided into twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs.

[8] Glasshouse Yard and St Sepulchre became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury.