Catalogue description CIVIL PARISH OF CHESTER

Minutes, Accounts, Poor Rate Assessments

See also CR213

Civil Parish of Chester

• Chester, Cheshire

By the Chester Improvement Act, 47 and 48 Victoria, Cap. 239, 1884, the parishes within the city of Chester were constituted one parish for all purposes other than ecclesiastical purposes and the administration of parochial charities. The same Act also vested the rights and powers of the inhabitants of the former parishes then included in the parish of Chester in the inhabitants of the parish of Chester in vestry assembled, and provision was made for the summoning of the first vestry meeting by the Town Clerk.

This Act also repealed the clauses of the Chester Improvement Act of 8 and 9 Victoria, Cap. 15, 1845, relating to the collection of the Improvement rate and Lamp rate, and ordered that these rates were to be authorised by the Council in the same way as the Borough rate, and raised and paid like the Borough rate by the overseers of the parish of Chester out of the Poor rate.

The powers of the vestry of the parish of Chester were transferred to the Council in 1896 under the Local Government Act of 1894, and for this reason these records have been classified as transferred. By the Rating and Valuation Act 15 and 16 George V, Cap. 90, 1925, Chester became a separate rating assessment area, a Rating Committee of the Council was appointed on 15 June 1926 and the first rates under the 1925 Act were declared in May 1927. However, because of the particular rating circumstances of the city, after obtaining the opinion of Counsel, the various rates continued to be levied by the Council 'in exercise of their powers and duties transferred from the Overseers of the Parish of Chester' as the Poor Rate for the parish of Chester until 1929, and for this reason the rate books for 1927 and 1928 have been placed here as records of the parish of Chester. The first General Rate for the city was declared in 1929