A royal commission was established in 1876 to inquire into these boroughs, and legislation passed in 1883 finally forced the reform or dissolution of these corporations by 1886.

[5] A royal commission was appointed in 1876 which investigated the unreformed boroughs and made recommendations on which towns might be brought under the Municipal Corporations Act.

The commissioners identified 75 towns with corporations still functioning, and recommended that 26 of them should be reformed, the others being abolished.

They also named a further 32 towns in which the corporation had become extinct, although the boroughs still had a legal existence.

The 1886 Act also dealt with a number of other corporations with a status similar to boroughs: