Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the
Local Government Act 1888, taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected
magistrates at the
quarter sessions. : Council's meeting place 1889–1969 The first elections were held in January 1889. After some provisional meetings, the council formally came into being on 1 April 1889. On that day it held its first official meeting at
Shire Hall, Bedford, the county's main courthouse, which had been completed in 1881 on the site of an earlier courthouse of 1753. Shire Hall had also served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council.
Charles Magniac, who had formerly been a
Liberal Member of Parliament for Bedford, was the first chairman of the county council. When first created, the council was responsible for of main roads outside towns, county bridges, and funding the
Poor Law Unions,
Bedfordshire Constabulary and the
Three Counties Asylum. Its first annual budget was £30,000. The council's powers and functions were gradually increased over time. The council took over the provision of education (except for in the boroughs of Bedford and Luton) under the
Education Act 1902. The Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908 gave the council the duty to provide allotments; by 1918 nearly of allotments had been provided in the county. In 1913, the
County Record Office was established by archivist
George Herbert Fowler, which was the first county record office in England. The first female councillor, Amy Walmley, was elected in 1922. In 1930, under the
Local Government Act 1929, the council took over the relief of the poor from the abolished Poor Law Unions, and took on the maintenance of minor roads from the district councils. In 1947 the
Bedfordshire Fire Brigade was created when responsibility for fire brigades passed to the county council. In 1964, Luton was made a
county borough, removing it from the
administrative county (the area administered by the county council).
Non-metropolitan county In 1974, Bedfordshire was redesignated as a
non-metropolitan county under the
Local Government Act 1972. Luton was brought back under the authority of the reformed county council, and the lower tier of local government was reorganised at the same time. Prior to 1974 the lower tier had comprised numerous
boroughs,
urban districts and
rural districts; it was reorganised into four
non-metropolitan districts: Bedford (called North Bedfordshire 1975–1992), Luton, Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire. Luton was once more made independent from the county council in 1997, when Luton Borough Council was made a unitary authority. In 2000, Bedfordshire County Council became a founding partner in the
Forest of Marston Vale, a
community forest aiming to restore land south-west of Bedford which had previously been used for
brickmaking with a country park and new tree planting. Between 2007 and 2009, proposals were considered for how to implement a unitary structure of local government across the county council's area. The three district councils put forward a proposal for the existing borough of Bedford to be one unitary authority and the Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire districts to merge into a new Central Bedfordshire unitary authority. Bedfordshire County Council proposed instead that there should be one Bedfordshire unitary authority covering the same area then served by the county council. The government supported the district councils' proposal. The county council pursued a judicial review of the government's decision, but was unsuccessful. The county council's last day was 31 March 2009, with the unitary authorities coming into force on 1 April 2009. ==Political control==