Welwyn Rural District

The link with the poor law union continued, with all the elected councillors of the rural district council being ex officio members of the Welwyn Board of Guardians.

[5] The Welwyn Rural District Council was therefore the local authority responsible for overseeing early work on the garden city.

The old Welwyn workhouse initially became a children's home before being converted to three houses, called 44, 46 and 48 London Road.

As well as being inconveniently cut off from Welwyn village by the bypass, the old hospital building was a corrugated iron hut dating back to the 1890s, which was uncomfortably hot in summer, cold in winter, and barely had enough room for the whole council to meet.

[9] Eventually the council built a new civic centre at Prospect Place in the village, which opened in April 1966.