This text is provided by Durham County Record Office

County Councils were established throughout England and Wales as a result of the Local Government Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Victoria, Ch.41). Consequently, the first County Council elections in the county of Durham were held on 24 January 1889. That the County Council was, in effect, almost a continuation of the Quarter Session is indicated by the fact that forty three magistrates stood as candidates. In all, there were seventy-two divisions in the county, for thirty-two of which the candidates were returned unopposed. These included J.L. Wharton Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, the Marquis of Londonderry, Lord Durham and Lord Ravensworth. The Durham County Advertiser, in its report of the election, asserted that, 'The polls in every direction were large, and the results are awaited with the keenest interest'. Twenty-eight Conservative, twenty-six Liberal, eight Unionist, four Working-Men and six other members were returned.

John Lloyd Wharton

The County Council, therefore, started its life with a small Conservative majority, although certain members of the Council, at least, hoped that party politics would not enter into its deliberations. Joseph Richardson, when nominating J.L. Wharton as first chairman, said, 'Politics has no part in the conducting of the affairs of the Quarter Sessions and he hoped the same gentlemanly conduct and same exercise of courtesy would be shown there by everyone independent of politics (hear hear)'. He thought it would be a sad day for the county if politics were to enter into the transactions of the affairs of the county. Despite these pious hopes, however, the first meeting of the provisional council was marked by controversy. John Wilson who had nominated Theodore Fry of Darlington as the first chairman of the County Council objected to what he saw as a conspiracy to nominate J.L. Wharton as first chairman and, as he pointed out, those who had nominated Mr. Wharton 'of course had the honour of having introduced politics for the first time'. A further dispute arose over the appointment of aldermen who, according to the Local Government Act, might be selected from elected councillors or from the great and the good outside the Council. Again John Wilson represented the opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy of Wharton and the other Conservatives. He 'felt bound to submit a resolution to the effect that having regard to the principle of direct representation, they should decide to limit the choice of alderman to such councilmen as had been elected by the people'.

The motion was rejected by the meeting and twenty-five aldermen, both from within and without the Council, were elected. Thus, even at its first meeting, despite nostalgic hopes that the County Council would be only the quarter sessions writ large and with the added frill of elected representatives, events showed that the County Council was set fair to be something completely different. This was soon confirmed by the almost immediate increase in its powers that occurred in the 1890s in the fields of public health and technical education and which has continued throughout its life. The County Council was the first, and only county-wide elected body and, as such, accrued many and various powers. The history of that increase can be traced through the history of its current powers.

Because on its creation the Council possessed only the limited powers of Quarter Sessions it naturally possessed no home of its own: its few officers were accommodated in houses rented in various parts of the City of Durham and the elected members often met in borrowed rooms. Soon, however, its growing number of employees and power urgently required a building large and impressive enough to reflect its increasing importance. In the early years the County Council's officers for the most part worked from offices in Old Elvet. In January 1893 when the Clerk to the Council sought permission to hire an additional office in Saddler Street 'lately used as a news room', it was remarked that 'the inconvenience of having the County Offices scattered in different parts of the City will probably have soon to consider the expedient of building Central Offices for the whole of the officials'.

Samuel Storey

In September 1893, the Council decided to purchase number 91/2 and 10 Old Elvet for £4,000 and 11 and 12 Old Elvet for £1,350 as a site for the proposed new offices. In February 1893 at a joint meeting of the chairmen of the standing committees of the County Council the relative amount of space to be allotted to the six chief officers was agreed. J. Vicars Edwards, the County Surveyor of the West Riding, was retained at a fee of 70 guineas [£73.50p] to assess the architectural plans for the building to be submitted in competition. Thirty eight designs were received: the winner was submitted by 'Onward' but the design which was built was that submitted by ' Demos', the pseudonym of Messrs. Barnes and Coates of Sunderland and West Hartlepool. The foundation stone was laid by the Earl of Durham on 25 April 1896 and the building was ready for officers in May 1898 and in July of that year for the councillors. The formal opening of the building took place on 26 July 1898 at noon by the Chairman of the County Council, Alderman Storey, and was followed by a council meeting at 1.00 p.m. and a formal luncheon in Durham Town Hall at 1.30 p.m. Present were luminaries of the county including the chairmen of all the rural and urban district councils. Comment in the local press was almost entirely favourable, although it was suggested that a stone building would have been more in keeping with the character of the city.

More typical were the comments of the Durham County Advertiser on 20 May 1898 'As a design the new buildings are exceptionally fine. The frontage is bold and artistic and as such has been everywhere favourably commented upon.

In drawing up their design the architects had to deal with a site which presented many difficulties. it is almost an equilateral triangle, and in utilising the space to the advantage which the public can now see, Messrs. Harry Barnes and Frederick E Coates of Sunderland and Hartlepool have earned a high tribute of praise...' On 29 July 1898 the same paper described the finished building: 'the entrance is in the centre with a fine balustrade extending on either side the full length of the building. The approach is up a fine flight of red Manfield stone steps, about 30 feet wide though an enriched archway. The gates are of wrought and hammered iron. The building is red terracotta, with dressings of the same material, from Messrs. Monk and Newell of Ruaba and the roofing green slates. The site being a hollow, a fine tower clustered shaft supporting a copper dome has been designed, which adds to the dignity and prominence of the building'. The Council chamber was particularly sumptuous: 'The Council Chamber is in the form of a horseshoe in plan...The Council Chamber is 45 feet in diameter, 30 feet in height, the top portion being circular. It was designed to accommodate 100 members in addition to officials and reporters. The walls are enriched with marble columns and panels and carving, and the windows filled with stained glass, representing the arms of the county and principal boroughs'. 'The main staircase...is beautifully panelled throughout with faience from the Burmantofte Faience and Tile Co., Leeds as are also the hall and the ground floor corridors. The steps are of marble, and the balustrade is red terra cotta'.

The building was, for the most part, constructed by local forms: the architects were based in Sunderland, the constructors were Messrs. Rankin and Son, Sunderland, the marble work was supplied by Lowes and Sons, Durham, furniture was supplied by Robson and Son, Newcastle and the plaster by Messrs. Rule, Sunderland. Only the faience work, the stained glass by McCulloch of Glasgow and the heating apparatus by Ashwell and Nesbitt of Leicester were from outside the locality. The total cost was £29,000 but, according to Alderman Bartless, 'the whole building had been paid for without any burden on the rates of the county'. The Council now possessed a building which was a sign of its importance and power in local administration and in the life of the county.

Elevation of Shire Hall

Alderman Storey at the opening of the Shire Hall, as reported by the Durham County Advertiser, gave expression to the way in which the County Council saw its function: 'Finally the County Council, though shorn of powers it ought to possess, had been able to do, and would continue to do, all that it could to improve the sanitary condition and health of the county. They had been but a few years of work. The past had left them an evil legacy in the county of insanitary dwellings and unpleasant villages, and they had sought as far as they could with the powers at their command to remedy these things, and although much remained to be done he thought he could stand on those steps and in the name of the County Council and of its Health Committee, say that after these few brief years there were more than 10,000 cottages now sanitary, that were before insanitary. There were 100 villages with an adequate supply of good water that had not such a thing before. In all these things the County Council worked by the command and by the authority of the people. In doing these things the Council spent a great deal of the public money and the only satisfaction it had was the satisfaction which sprung from time to time from the thought that some evils which need not have existed had been abated and that some good things that had not a past had under their management acquired a future.' Perhaps it could be said that Alderman Storey summed up the philosophy of the Durham County Council in its hundred years of existence in saying that it worked 'by the command and by authority of the people' in abating evils and giving 'good things' a future.