On 1 April 2019, Dorset County Council (DCC), along with the district and borough councils, was succeeded by the new unitary Dorset Council. DCC was thus in operation for 130 years, over which time it administered a large part of Dorset’s local services from roads, libraries and small holdings to social care, country parks, Trading Standards and the Fire and Police Authorities.
DCC came into existence through the Local Government Act of 1888. The new County Council took on the administrative functions of the Quarter Sessions courts which had to this point performed many of these roles.
The budget for the first year of the authority’s operations was £1.166 million. By way of contrast, the last County Council net budget (2018/19) was £283.3 million. The first clerk to Dorset County Council, E.A. Ffooks was paid a salary of £2,000, a large sum at the time. However, from within this figure he, himself had to provide offices and staff with which to administer DCC’s business.
The first elections to DCC took place in January 1889. 24 of the 57 new members of the new council were returned unopposed and a total of 35,100 voters participated. With Lord Stalbridge elected as chairman. The Council developed a committee system to support its work. Dorset History Centre holds a complete set of the authority’s minutes along with a very large archive (many hundreds of boxes) of other records relating to the authority’s business.
Looking through the archive as part of the process of marking the transition to the new council, it was remarkable to see what it holds – from records of the county farms, road infrastructure to wartime emergency planning through to tree preservation orders and rights of way.