The districts of Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen became unitary authorities in 1998, meaning they are no longer governed by Lancashire County Council.

Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions.

The 1888 Act also placed each urban sanitary district which straddled county boundaries in one administrative county, and so Lancashire gained the parts of Ashton under Lyne, Stalybridge, and Warrington which had been in Cheshire, and the parts of Mossley which had been in Cheshire and Yorkshire.

John Tomlinson Hibbert, a Liberal who had previously been the Member of Parliament for Oldham, was appointed the first chairman of the council.

[8] Lancashire was reconstituted under the Local Government Act 1972 with some significant changes to its territory, notably ceding significant areas in the south to Greater Manchester and Merseyside and in the north to Cumbria, whilst gaining more modest areas from Yorkshire to the east.

In 1998 Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool were both made unitary authorities, making them independent from the county council.

The original part of the building was a courthouse completed in 1882, which also served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council.

The building became the meeting place for the county council on its creation in 1889 and was significantly extended in 1903 and 1934 to provide additional office space.

Library services were slow to develop as the average ratable value of the area outside the county boroughs and the other local authorities which had already adopted the act was relatively low.