The liberty was founded sometime after 1200, from land that had previously part of the
City of London.
Components and purpose The area originally comprised three small
liberties: •
Tower Within; The Tower, its moat and a small area of Tower Hill outside the
city wall. •
Old Tower Without; on Tower Hill, outside the Tower and mostly within the city wall. • Great Tower Hill; on Tower Hill, outside the Tower and inside the city wall. In everyday speech, the term
Great Tower Hill came to apply to Tower Hill inside the
city wall, with
Little Tower Hill referring to the area outside the wall. The presence of a unit called Great Tower Hill which covered only part of the area inside the city wall would later cause legal confusion. The liberties had an administration separate from the neighbouring county and city, headed by the
Constable of the Tower of London, appointed their own coroner, and had their own courthouse with general and
quarter sessions and gaol. A force of constables was appointed for the area. The inhabitants had certain other privileges such as being able to claim any beast that fell from, and any swans under,
London Bridge. The boundaries were presented by a Leet Jury in 1525, and again as surveyed by Haiward and Gascoyne in 1597. From the mid-seventeenth century, the liberty was part of a larger liberty, the
Tower Division or Tower Hamlets which was independent of the county of
Middlesex, carrying out Hundred and County responsibilities locally.
Expansion and evolution The area of the
liberty expanded in 1686, when
letters patent granted by
James II added three small
exclaves; the
Old Artillery Ground,
Little Minories and the
Liberty of Wellclose. These areas had come into the possession of the Crown when the religious houses that formerly administered them were
dissolved. They were subsequently used for the storing of ordnance. From 1837, the liberty formed part of the Whitechapel Poor Law Union, a grouping of administrative areas that combined for the purposes of administering poor relief. From 1855, the area became part of the
Whitechapel District for certain local government purposes.
Administrative function phased out Extra-parochial places were progressively eliminated and following the
Extra-Parochial Places Act 1857, the
Tower of London and
Old Tower Without became civil parishes in 1858. The Old Artillery Ground became a civil parish in 1866, following the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1867. The liberty had become obsolete by 1889 when it became part of the
County of London. It was thought that the
Local Government Act 1888 had removed the jurisdiction of the justices. However, the charter was found to be still in operation. The liberty was abolished on 25 June 1894, following a petition by the justices of the peace of the County of London under the
Liberties Act 1850. The
Whitechapel District was dissolved in 1900 and local government functions passed to the
Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. The liberty continued as a franchise
coroner's district. The
Coroners (Amendment) Act 1926 (
16 & 17 Geo. 5. c. 59) provided that the district could be dissolved when a vacancy arose; when a vacancy occurred on 10 May 1939, an order was made on 30 November 1939 combining it with the east district. This came into effect on 1 January 1940. Since 1965 it has formed part of the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Greater London. Following boundary changes around the
Minories in 1994, small parts are now in the
City of London.
Historic population data The population was 3,995 in 1811 and 4,190 in 1831, the large majority of these people living in the former exclaves. ==Myth and legend==