[1] Following significant population growth in the late 19th century, largely associated with the steel industry, the town appointed a local board of health in 1890.

[2][3] Scunthorpe became an urban district in 1894,[4] and, in this context, civic leaders established council offices, along with a Carnegie library, on Old Station Road (now known as High Street East).

[5] However, following amalgamation with Frodingham Urban District in 1919 and advancement to the status of municipal borough in 1936, the council's responsibilities grew and, by the mid-1950s, the existing premises were inadequate.

It was designed by Charles B. Pearson and Partners in the modernist style, built with a steel frame cased in concrete and with extensive glazing, and was completed in 1962.

In the entrance hall is a 4th-century Romano-British mosaic of the goddess of agriculture, Ceres, which was excavated from a Roman villa in Winterton in 1959.