Discover

The 'Metropolitan Borough of Paddington' was a metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1900 and 1965.

Contents

History

Area and population

Notable places

References

History

Its area covered that part of the current City of Westminster west of Edgware Road and Maida Vale, and north of Bayswater Road. Places in the borough included Paddington, Westbourne Green, Bayswater, Maida Hill, West Kilburn, Maida Vale. To the south it bordered the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster, to the east, the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone.
Paddington Town Hall, designed by James Lockyer in the Classical style, dated from 1853.^[1] The building, originally the Vestry Hall, was situated on Paddington Green. It was enlarged in 1900 and 1920. Following its closure in 1965, it was demolished to make way for the Westway urban motorway. The chair used by the Mayors of Paddington at council meetings was preserved, and is currently placed in the hallway at the Council House in Marylebone Road, the current meeting place for Westminster City Council. The war memorial, unveiled in 1924, was moved to the adjacent parish church of St. Mary.^[2]
It was abolished in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 and its former area merged with that of the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster and the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone to form the present-day City of Westminster.

Area and population

The area of Paddington Metropolitan Borough was 1,357 acres, once part of Kensal New Town was added after 1901. The population recorded in the Census was:
'Civil Parish 1801-1899'

Year[3]	1801	1811	1821	1831	1841	1851	1861	1871	1881	1891
Population	1,881	4,609	6,476	14,540	25,173	46,305	75,784	96,813	107,058	117,846

'Metropolitan Borough 1900-1961'

Year[4]	1901	1911	1921	1931	1941	1951	1961
Population	143,976	142,551	144,261	144,923	[5]	125,463	116,923

:''Note that the population statistics up to 1891 exclude the area of Kensal Town transferred from Chelsea in 1900.''

Notable places

★ Kensal Green Cemetery

★ Paddington Station

★ St. Mary's Hospital - Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin here

★ City Of Westminster College (formerly Paddington College)

References

1. Nikolaus Pevsner, ''The Buildings of England: London except the Cities of London and Westminster'' Harmondsworth 1952
2. Victoria County History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989)
3. Statistical Abstract for London, 1901 (Vol. IV); Census tables for Metropolitan Borough of Paddington
4. Paddington MetB: Census Tables accessed 19 June 2007
5. ''The census was suspended for World War II