These corporations were not popularly elected: characteristically they were self-selecting oligarchies, were nominated by tradesmen's guilds or were under the control of the lord of the manor.
The legislation required all municipal corporations to be elected according to a standard franchise, based on property ownership.
At the same time, a procedure was established whereby the inhabitant householders of a town could petition the Crown via the privy council to grant a charter of incorporation, constituting the area a municipal borough.
[2] The attempts to incorporate large industrial towns such as Birmingham, Bolton, Manchester and Sheffield by Whig and Radical "incorporationists" were bitterly contested by Tory "anti-incorporationists".
This speech eventually led to the Redcliffe-Maud Report recommending large unitary councils for all England.
[6] Each municipal borough possessed a corporation uniformly designated as the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the town.
However, the actual administration was carried out by a town council, which was in effect a committee representative of the community at large.
The councillors were directly elected by the burgesses for a three-year term, with one-third of their membership retiring each year.
The Municipal Corporations Act 1882 empowered the council to elect any suitably qualified inhabitant of the borough as mayor.
[10] The municipal boroughs created under the 1835 Act had powers relating to electoral registration, providing a watch, making byelaws, and holding various civil and criminal courts.
Many boroughs were covered by separate bodies of improvement commissioners responsible for matters such as paving, lighting and cleaning streets, supplying water and providing sewers.
[13] The overlapping functions of borough councils, improvement commissioners and local boards were gradually consolidated.
[14] There were a handful of exceptions where commissioners and local boards continued to operate alongside borough councils until the Local Government Act 1888 required the remaining anomalies to be addressed; from 1889 all borough councils were sanitary authorities with powers to provide infrastructure and oversee public health.
In most cases, the civic privileges and coat of arms of the abolished boroughs were inherited by one of the new local authorities.
In a few cases charter trustees, a special committee of district councillors, were formed to perpetuate the mayoralty of a town or city.
Inhabitants of the larger of the abolished boroughs or of any town with a population of 3,000 could petition the crown for incorporation under the Act.
[18] The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 designated the six largest municipalities (Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Derry and Waterford) as county boroughs.
The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919 introduced a system of proportional representation into municipal elections.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland abolished proportional representation in local government elections in 1922, and amended the 1840 Act in 1926, allowing urban districts to petition the Governor for a charter of incorporation.
In 1930, the borough of Dún Laoghaire was created by the amalgamation of the four urban districts of Blackrock, Dalkey, Kingstown, and Killiney and Ballybrack in County Dublin.