The district was created by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, and comprised the civil parish of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury, Middlesex: the two parishes had been combined for civil purposes in 1774.

The district was abolished in 1900 and its former area became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn.

The boundaries of the district took in the whole of Lincoln's Inn Fields to the southeast and the western section of High Holborn.

The southern boundary ran along Drury Lane and fell a few yards short of Shelton Street, taking in the district of Seven Dials.

[5] St Giles District was originally in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works, to which body it nominated one member.