Vestries Act 1831

The Vestries Act 1831, commonly known as Hobhouse's Vestry Act, was an Act of Parliament in 1831 and was a local government overhaul which also affected the Established Church at a local level. The act gave subsidiarity in that local ratepayers would have to agree by a special majority for the reform to take effect in their local area.
Where locally approved it replaced the select vestry with a non-co-opted system of vestrymen to be instead elected by ratepayers who had been resident in the parish for more than a year.
To adopt the act the parish had to have over 800 ratepayers, of whom at least two-thirds would need to vote in support of the reform.
The five metropolitan parishes to adopt the act were:

Membership of their vestries were replaced over a period of three years with a series of elections.
The Metropolis Management Act 1855 went further by abolishing the remaining select vestries of all metropolitan parishes in 1855 and extended the principle of election by ratepayers.