Metropolitan Borough of Oldham: History
Following both the Local Government Act 1888 and Local Government Act 1894, local government in England had been administered via a national framework of rural districts, urban districts, municipal boroughs and county boroughs, which (apart from the latter which were independent) shared power with strategic county councils of the administrative counties. The areas that were incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in 1974 had formed part of Chadderton Urban District, Crompton Urban District, Failsworth Urban District, Lees Urban District and Royton Urban District from the administrative county of Lancashire, Saddleworth Urban District from the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the politically independent County Borough of Oldham. By the early 1970s, nationally, this system of demarcation was described as "archaic" and "grossly inadequate to keep pace both with the impact of motor travel, and with the huge increases in local government responsibilities". After the exploration of reform, such as the proposals made by the Redcliffe-Maud Report in the late 1960s, the Local Government Act 1972 restructured local government in England by creating a system of two-tier metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties and districts throughout the country. The act formally established the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham as a local government district of the new metropolitan county of Greater Manchester on 1 April 1974. The district was granted honorific borough status on 23 November 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, which allowed the council to have a mayor. The new dual local authorities of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council and Greater Manchester County Council had been running since elections in 1973 however. The leading article in The Times on the day the Local Government Act came into effect noted that the "new arrangement is a compromise which seeks to reconcile familiar geography which commands a certain amount of affection and loyalty, with the scale of operations on which modern planning methods can work effectively". …