Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames: History
Kingston upon Thames, on the south bank of the River Thames has existed for many hundreds of years. Many Roman relics have been found in the surrounding areas. A church has stood on the site of All Saints' Church, in the centre of Kingston, for more than a thousand years. An earlier church was sacked by the Vikings in 1009 AD. Kingston was the site of the coronations of seven Anglo-Saxon monarchs:
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, 900AD
Athelstan, 925AD
Edmund I, 939AD
Eadred, 946AD
Eadwig, 956AD
Edward the Martyr, 975AD
Ethelred the Unready, 979AD
The Coronation Stone, on which they are said to have been crowned stands outside the local council offices, the Guildhall. A coin from the reign of each of those kings is set into the base of the stone.
The town of Kingston upon Thames was an ancient borough, having been formally incorporated in 1441, with a long history prior to that as a royal manor dating back to Saxon times. The borough was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. Kingston was often described as a royal borough, with its right to that title being formally confirmed in 1927.
The old borough did not cover the whole parish of Kingston upon Thames, and separate local government arrangements were later put in place for the outlying parts of the parish. Surbiton was made an improvement commissioners district in 1855, and New Malden was made a local government district in 1866.
Such districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. New Malden was enlarged in 1895 to take in the neighbouring parishes of Coombe and Malden, at which point the urban district was renamed The Maldens and Coombe. Surbiton was also enlarged in 1895, absorbing the parishes of Hook and Tolworth, and again in 1933 when it absorbed Chessington. Both urban districts were incorporated to become municipal boroughs in 1936, at which point The Maldens and Coombe was renamed Malden and Coombe.
The modern borough was created in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, covering the combined area of the former municipal boroughs of Kingston-upon-Thames, Malden and Coombe and Surbiton. The area was transferred from Surrey to Greater London to become one of the 32 London Boroughs. Kingston's royal borough status transferred to the enlarged borough.
Most of the borough continued to have Surrey postal addresses until postal counties were abolished in 1996. Districts mainly use the KT postcode, except from the parts of Ham in the borough which use the TW code, and the Kingston Vale area in the north-east which has an SW15 postcode.