County Borough of Bury
Bury was a local government district centred on Bury in the northwest of England from 1846 to 1974.
Under the Bury Improvement Act 1846 a board of twenty-seven improvement commissioners was formed for Bury. The Improvement Commissioners District was enlarged in 1872. A charter of incorporation dated 9 September 1876 created the town a municipal borough and it was further extended in 1885.
Under the Local Government Act 1888 Bury was constituted a county borough. This meant that it was independent of Lancashire County Council, exercising both the powers of a borough and county council. However, Bury remained in Lancashire for judicial and other purposes such as lieutenancy and shrievalty. The county borough was extended in 1911 when it gained the Warth area from Radcliffe Urban District and in 1933 when it absorbed much of the dissolved Bury Rural District.
The County Borough of Bury was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 and its territory transferred to Greater Manchester to form the central part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury.
Corporation
On incorporation the borough was divided into five wards: Church, Redvales, East, Moorside and Elton. The corporation consisted of a mayor, ten aldermen and thirty councillors, with six councillors and one alderman returned for each ward. On the extension of the borough in 1933 the size of the borough council was increased to thirty-three councillors and eleven aldermen. In 1969 wards were reorganised and the council increased in size to thirty-six councillors and twelve aldermen.Politics
The members elected to the early borough council did not use political labels. However, by 1901 the borough was under the control of the Liberal Party. In 1904 Conservatives and Liberal Unionists gained a majority. In the following year the first Labour councillors were elected. The council was under no overall control until 1937. In that year Conservatives gained an overall majority, which it held until 1945. The Labour Party briefly held power in 1946–1947. The council returned to Conservative control in 1947, and the party was in control for twenty-one of the next twenty-five years, and was the largest party for the remainder of the period. At the final election of the council in 1972 Labour took control.Coat of arms
A coat of arms was granted to the borough by the College of Arms on 28 February 1877.The symbols displayed in the four quarters represented local industry. They were an anvil, for iron forging; a golden fleece, for wool; a pair of crossed shuttles, for the cotton industry; and a papyrus plant for the paper trade. The quarters were divided by a "cross party and fretty". The crest above the shield was a bee, symbolic of industry in general, between two cotton flowers.
The Latin motto chosen was Vincit Omnia Industria or "work conquers all".
The blazon of the arms was as follows:
''Quarterly argent and azure, a cross party and fretty counterchanged between an anvil sable in the first quarter, a fleece Or in the second, two shuttles in saltire threads pendent proper in the third, and three culms of the papyrus plant issuing from a mount vert also proper in the fourth.
And for a Crest: On a wreath of the colours, Upon a mount a bee volant between two flowers of the cotton-tree slipped all proper.''