 Until 1894 the guardians consisted of justices of the peace along with other members elected by rate-payers, with higher rate-payers having more votes.JPs were removed and plural voting stopped in 1894, but nobody actually receiving poor relief was allowed to vote.Their areas were espoused for other functional districts, such as civil registration of all births, marriages and deaths which became law from 1837 and rural sanitary districts established in 1875.