Manchester had been governed as a
borough in the 13th and 14th centuries, but its borough status was not supported by a royal charter. An inquiry in 1359 ruled that it was only a
market town, not a borough. It was then governed by
manorial courts and the parish
vestry until the 18th century. , King Street: Completed 1825 for the Police Commissioners, subsequently served as council's headquarters until 1877 In 1792 a body of
improvement commissioners known as the '''''' was established to provide services in the rapidly growing town. In 1838 the town was incorporated as a
municipal borough, after which it was governed by a town council body formally called the 'Mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Manchester', but mostly known as the ''''''. The police commissioners were disbanded in 1843 and their functions passed to the corporation. Manchester was granted
city status in 1853, only the second such grant since the
Reformation. After that the corporation was also known as the city council. The mayor was granted the title of
lord mayor in 1893.
Henry Price (1867–1944) was appointed as the first
City Architect of Manchester in 1902. He was succeeded in 1932 by
George Noel Hill (1893–1985). The county borough was abolished in 1974 under the
Local Government Act 1972, being replaced by a
metropolitan district of Manchester, covering the area of the old county borough plus the parish of
Ringway. The new district was one of ten metropolitan districts within the new
metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. Manchester's borough and city statuses and its lord mayoralty passed to the new district and its council. In 1980, Manchester was the first council to declare itself a
nuclear-free zone. In 1984 it formed an equal opportunities unit as part of its opposition to
Section 28. From 1974 until 1986 the council was a lower-tier authority, with upper-tier functions provided by the
Greater Manchester County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and its functions passed to Greater Manchester's ten borough councils, including Manchester City Council, with some services provided through joint committees. Since 2011 the council has been a member of the
Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly elected
Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. The combined authority provides strategic leadership and co-ordination for certain functions across Greater Manchester, notably regarding transport and town planning, but Manchester City Council continues to be responsible for most local government functions. In 2025, the council was criticised for misleading parking signs on Collier Street, where an official council sign pointed to an official-looking payment terminal owned by a nearby private car park rather than the correct council-owned one, leading to several motorists being fined. After a campaign ran by
TikTok creator
Zoë Bread, the council refunded all fines given out on the street in the last 12 months. ==Governance==