PUBLIC CONTROL DEPARTMENT: SHOPS ACTS AND MARKETS

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: LCC/PC/SHO
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: PUBLIC CONTROL DEPARTMENT: SHOPS ACTS AND MARKETS
Date(s)	: 1886-1965
Level of description	: Collection View parent record
Extent	: 1.75 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: LCC | London County Council x London County Council

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The term 'public control', as used in the Council's organisation, embraced various services of a regulative character, mostly exercised by some form of licensing control. Largely unobtrusive in their operation, and producing no spectacular effects, they were all carried out in the public interest and, in some respects, for the protection of the public or certain sections of it.

Their administration was conditioned by trends in the legislative provisions under which they were operated, by shifts and changes in social usages, and by the development of the Council's policies towards the matters to which they related.

The purpose of the Shops Acts, replaced by the Shops Act in 1950, was not only to protect shop assistants but also, by regularising closing hours, to protect shopkeepers against each other. It was the Council's task to make the Acts known to shopkeepers, and to secure the observance of the provisions relating to closing hours, Sunday trading, shop assistants' meal times and holidays, and the hours of employment of young persons.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of the London County Council Public Control Department relating to Shops and Markets, 1886-1965, including papers on the catering trade; sale of fireworks; mock auctions; analysis of statistics of shops and stalls in the county of London; effect of the First and Second World Wars on shops; Consumer Rationing Order, 1941; sale of contraceptives from automatic machines; the Shops Act, 1912 and 1913; Shops (Early Closing) Acts, 1920 and 1921; Shops (Hours of Closing) Act, 1928; Shops Act, 1950; Government Investigation into hours and conditions of Employment in shops and Select Committee on Shop Assistants; Shops (Sunday Trading Restriction) Act, 1936; Fabrics (Misdescription) Act, 1913; Departmental Committee on Hours of Employment of Young Persons in unregulated occupations; Young Persons (Employment) Act, 1938; Covent Garden Market; Billingsgate Fish Market; Deptford Cattle Market; Whitechapel Hay Market; street trading; register of shops for Sunday Trading and examples of posters for public display giving notice of orders, regulations, and so on.

Reports, including Select Committee on Shop Hours Regulation Bill Report, 1886; Select Committee on Shop Hours Bill Report and Special Report, 1892; Departmental Committee on the Shops (Early Closing) Acts 1920 and 1921 Report and Evidence, 1927; Departmental Committee on the Wholesale Food Markets of London Reports, 1920-1921.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

LCC/PC/SHO/01: General files; LCC/PC/SHO/02: Registers of shops; LCC/PC/SHO/03: Reports.

Conditions governing access:

Available for general access.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright: City of London

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Acquired with the records of its parent body, the London County Council.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

For further information on the history of the LCC please see Achievement: A Short History of the London County Council by W Eric Jackson (1965), LMA Library reference 18.0 1965, The London County Council 1938, LMA Library reference 18.7 SER 4, and The Youngest County: A description of London as a county and its public services, 1951, LMA Library reference 18.0 1951.

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
April to June 2009