municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council came to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The Commissions of the Peace were also an instrument of reform. Many Boroughs had borough courts of the previous oligarchies of Mayor and Aldermen, advised by a Recorder, these were abolished with the magistrates being appointed as per in the counties – many indeed were supposedly 'county boroughs'. This reform was as crucial as that of the constitution of the council itself. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. Exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, or to specialist guilds and companies (similar to those of the London livery companies), were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character as a town watch, was modernised along the lines of the Peel reforms for constabulary placed under the control of the council. The various privileged areas within the bounds of a borough were with few exceptions made part of the borough. The powers of the council to alienate corporate property were closely restricted. The operations of the act were extended by later legislation, and the diverse amendments and enactments which followed were consolidated in the Municipal Corporations Act 1882. See also County corporate Liberty (division) Burh Rotten and pocket boroughs Notes References Attribution: Endnotes: Gross, C. (1897). Bibliography of British Municipal History. Maitland, F. W. (1898). Township and Borough. (Township and Borough: Being the Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in the October Term of 1897, Cambridge University Press, 1898.) Ballard, A. (1904). Domesday Boroughs. External links . Burghal Hidage Borough Parliament of England Boroughs of the United Kingdom