The townships, separated by the River Irk, lay in different parishes and local administration was in the hands of constables appointed by the Lord of the Manor.

[2] In 1861 a local act of parliament established Middleton and Tonge Improvement Commissioners under the Chairmanship of cotton spinner Edmund Howarth to provide public services in the area.

[3] Following a petition by the inhabitant householders of the improvement commissioners district, a charter of incorporation was granted on 21 July 1886, constituting the area as the Municipal Borough of Middleton.

[2] In the early years the borough council appears to have non-political, and elections were rarely contested, with an agreed panel of candidates standing unopposed.

The blazon of the arms was as follows: Quarterly per pale nebuly gules and argent on a fesse ermine between a cross patonce of the second in the first quarter a mullet sable pierced of the field in the second a silkworm moth volant in the third and a rock in base thereon a stork in the fourth three sprigs of the cotton tree slipped and fructed all proper, and for a crest on a wreath of the colours upon a mount vert between two boars' heads erect and couped sable a tower proper suspended therefrom by a riband gules an escutcheon Or charged with a lion passant also gules.