ncillors,
together forming a town council. The councillors were to be elected
directly by ratepaying occupiers, with a saving for the prescriptive
rights of existing freemen. They were to hold office for three years;
the aldermen were to be elected by the councillors for six years, with a
provision for retirement by rotation. The mayor was to be elected
annually by the town council. The elementary powers of local government,
such as the control of lighting and the constabulary force, were to be
transferred (subject to certain exceptions) from the hands of committees
into those of the one recognised and supreme municipal authority. Other
clauses provided for a division of the larger boroughs into wards, for
the abolition of exclusive trading privileges, for the public management
of charity estates, and for the appointment, at the option of each
borough, of a recorder, for the purposes of jurisdiction.

Such were the main outlines of the great measure introduced by Russell,
to which Peel heartily gave his adhesion. It was a natural, and almost
necessary, sequel of the reform act, which had already broken up many
nests of jobbery, curtailed the lucrative exercise of the elective
franchise by freemen, and undermined the influence of those self-elected
rulers who, in the worst boroughs, had become gangs of public thieves.
Supported by Peel, the bill was read a second time in the house of
commons, on June 15, without a division. Several conservative amendments
were defeated in committee by small majorities, and the bill was sent up
to the lords on July 21. There its fate was far different. Though
Wellington himself was not disposed to obstruct it, he entirely failed
to check the obstructive tactics of Lyndhurst who, on this occasion,
outdid himself in the deliberate mutilation of a bill approved by the
late conservative premier. Lord Campbell, no partial judge of Brougham,
has left on record his belief that, but for his faithful and vigorous
support, the scheme of municipal reform must have been utterly
wrecked.[133] It was allowed to be read a second time, but with the
full concurrence of Eldon and all the ultra-tory peers, Lyndhurst
succeeded in pulling it to pieces in committee. For instance, one of the
amendments imported into it perpetuated proprietary rights which it was
a chief object of the bill to abolish; another gave aldermen a
life-tenure of their offices; a third retained a part of the old town
councillors on the