London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham: History
The area of the modern borough broadly corresponds to the ancient parish of Fulham, which was part of the county of Middlesex. The manor (estate) of Fulham can be traced back to the seventh century when it was granted to the Bishop of London. The chapelry of Hammersmith was given its own vestry in 1631, making it a separate civil parish from Fulham.
From 1856 the area was governed by the Metropolitan Board of Works, which was established to provide services across the metropolis of London. In 1889 the Metropolitan Board of Works' area was made the County of London. From 1856 until 1900 the lower tier of local government within the metropolis comprised various parish vestries and district boards. From 1856 until 1886 the two parishes of Fulham and Hammersmith were administered together as the Fulham District. The Fulham district was dissolved in 1886 when the vestries for its two parishes took on district functions.
In 1900 the lower tier was reorganised into metropolitan boroughs, the two parishes becoming the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham and the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith.
The modern borough was formed in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, covering the combined area of the former metropolitan boroughs of Fulham and Hammersmith. The new borough was originally called the London Borough of Hammersmith, but the council changed the borough's name to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham with effect from 1 April 1979.
Fulham saw industrialisation and urbanisation from the start of the 19th century, with the establishment of the world's first energy utility company, at Sands End in 1824, followed by road and rail transport development to the east of the borough. Vacant land by the new railway sidings on the boundary with Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council led to the development of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, visited by Queen Victoria in 1879 when she attended Bill Cody's Wild West Show at West Brompton. There followed numerous international fairs and exhibitions for a century until the construction of Earls Court II in the borough in the 1980s. This was dismantled by developers in 2015.
At the other end of today's borough, in 1908, the Franco-British Exhibition and Olympic Games were hosted in Hammersmith, at White City, London, but the site then took many decades to be redeveloped. In 1960, the BBC opened the BBC Television Centre. Westfield London opened in 2008, a large development with new transport links and a shopping centre.