HOO RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL RECORDS

HRDC

1833-1950

fonds

Hoo Rural District Council (RDC) was made up of the parishes of All Hallows [Hoo Allhallows], Cooling, High Halstow, Hoo St. Werburgh, St. James (Isle of Grain), Hoo St. Mary and Stoke. Although the first minute book in this collection (HRDC/Am/1) starts in 1897, the Council was inaugurated in 1895 and the first minutes can be found in the Hoo Rural Sanitary Authority's final minute book (G/Ho/NPs/1/2) and those of the Hoo Highway Board (HB/Ho/2). Hoo RDC took over from Hoo Rural Sanitary Authority and Hoo Highway Board (hence the minutes of the new authority being found initially in the records of the old). The new council met in the boardroom of Hoo Workhouse and was administered by the same officers as the Hoo Poor Law Union. In 1894, Richard Philpott Smyth was Clerk to the Guardians and to the Rural Sanitary Authority and in 1895 he was Clerk to Hoo RDC. In 1923, when the old workhouse was sold, it was acquired by the RDC to be its new headquarters. Hoo RDC was responsible for public health and the Isolation Hospital (built in 1897 near Ratcliffe Highway and in use until 1922), highways, education and, later, housing and rating. It existed until 1 April 1935, when it was absorbed into the larger Strood Rural District Council.

The records of Hoo RDC include some inherited records of various local sub-committees (Kent county committees) such as pensions, education and wartime recruitment.

Related archive collections: G/Ho (Hoo Poor Law Union/Board of Guardians); HB/Ho (Hoo Highway Board); SRDC (Strood Rural District Council).