What Is the City of London Corporation? A Plain-English Guide

Short answer: The City of London Corporation is the local government of the City of London, the one-square-mile financial district at the historic heart of the capital. It has its own Lord Mayor and its own police force. It is the only council in Britain where businesses, not just residents, put voters on the roll. And it carries a duty no ordinary council has: supporting and representing the financial services industry.

That is the summary. Here is how it works.

The City is not London

When people say "London," they usually mean Greater London: the whole capital, run by the Mayor of London and 32 borough councils.

The City of London is a district inside it. Roughly one square mile. The Bank of England is there. So is St Paul's. So are most of the towers in any photo of the financial district.

The City does the everyday jobs a borough does. Bins, planning, licensing. But it is not a borough. It is a corporation, with its own structure, its own officers and its own rules for who votes. (For more on the split, see The Square Mile Is Not London.)

About 9,000 people live there now. In 1801 it was about 130,000. After the Second World War it fell below 5,000. The residents left. The offices stayed.

How old is it?

Older than almost anything else in British government.

No founding charter survives. The law treats the City as incorporated "by prescription": it has been treated as a legal body for so long that the law presumes it is one. Magna Carta already says the City of London "shall have all the old liberties and customs which it hath been used to have." That clause is still on the statute book.

The first royal charter on record dates from around 1067, when William the Conqueror confirmed the rights Londoners had held under Edward the Confessor. The City had its own mayor by around 1189. The Court of Common Council has gone by that name since at least 1376.

The legal name is still the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London. The everyday name, "City of London Corporation," only dates from 2006, when it was changed to stop people confusing it with the Greater London Authority.

Who runs it?

Four parts.

• The Lord Mayor. Not the Mayor of London. The Lord Mayor of the City of London holds an office that goes back to about 1189, serves one year at a time, and is mostly ceremonial: chairing the City's two courts, receiving foreign dignitaries, and representing the City at home and abroad.
• The Court of Aldermen. Twenty-five aldermen, one per ward, elected for up to six years. The only qualification is being a Freeman of the City. They don't have to live there.
• The Court of Common Council. One hundred common councilmen. This is the main decision-making body. It meets nine times a year and does most of its work through committees. Elections come every four years, most recently in March 2025. The real political lead is the chair of the Policy and Resources Committee, often described as the City's "de facto political leader."
• The Freemen and the livery companies. There are more than a hundred livery companies, which began as medieval guilds. Their senior members, the liverymen, form Common Hall. Common Hall, not the residents, chooses the Lord Mayor and the two Sheriffs each year.

The business vote

This is the part that surprises people.

Everywhere else in Britain, local elections are for people who live there. The non-residential vote, the business vote, was abolished in the rest of the country in 1969. The City kept it.

Then Parliament widened it. The City of London (Ward Elections) Act 2002 lets firms with premises in the City appoint voters by headcount:

• fewer than 10 workers: one voter
• 10 to 50 workers: one voter for every five
• more than 50 workers: ten voters, plus one more for every 50 beyond the first 50

The result is an electorate where businesses outnumber residents. In 2009 the business vote was about 24,000, far above the residential roll.

No secret handshake. It is the election rule, printed in an Act of Parliament.

What does it control?

More than a square mile suggests.

• Its own police. The City of London Police is separate from the Metropolitan Police, which covers the rest of Greater London. The Common Council is its police authority.
• Green space far outside the City. About 10,000 acres of it, including Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest, Burnham Beeches and Highgate Wood.
• Its own constitution. The Corporation can alter its own constitution by an Act of Common Council. It was also left out of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which reformed almost every other borough in England.
• A voice in Parliament. Since 1571 the City has had an officer called the Remembrancer. The Remembrancer's department follows legislation, briefs MPs and handles the City's dealings with Parliament and the Crown.
• A private endowment. Beside its public budget, the Corporation controls an endowment called City's Cash, built up over about 800 years from property and investments. After criticism over transparency, it disclosed in December 2012 that the fund held more than £1.3 billion. By March 2016 it reported net assets of £2.3 billion.

Myths that don't survive a fact check

The City collects folklore. Some of it is wrong, and wrong claims make the real record easier to wave away.

"Precision matters, because bad arguments about power attract bad company." — The Veil of the Square Mile

"The monarch has to ask permission to enter the City." No. At the Pearl Sword ceremony, the Lord Mayor presents the hilt of the City's sword to the monarch, who touches it and hands it back. City historians, including the Guildhall Historical Association and the writer Paul Jagger, describe it as the Lord Mayor acknowledging the monarch's authority, not the monarch asking leave. Jagger calls the permission story one of the most persistent myths about the Square Mile.

"The Remembrancer sits behind the Speaker." No. As a parliamentary agent, the Remembrancer may watch from the under-gallery near the entrance, at the opposite end of the chamber from the Speaker's chair. That seat comes by the Speaker's permission, not by right, and it carries no ability to take part in proceedings.

"Parliament has no power over the City." No. The 2002 Act that widened the business vote was an Act of Parliament. The City's special position exists because Parliament keeps choosing to leave it in place. That is a more interesting fact than any loophole.

Why it matters

None of this is hidden. The ceremonies are public. The election rules are law. The endowment's size has been disclosed.

What makes the City unusual is how ordinary it all looks: an ancient corporation with a business electorate and a formal role representing finance, sitting in the middle of one of the world's biggest financial markets, presented as local government.

That ordinariness is the subject of The Veil of the Square Mile. The book builds its case from the record and says where the record stops.

"This is one reconstruction. Test it."

FAQ

What is the City of London Corporation? It is the local authority for the City of London, the one-square-mile financial district inside Greater London. It also has a formal role supporting and representing the financial services industry.

Is the City of London the same as London? No. The City of London is a district of about one square mile inside Greater London, with its own Lord Mayor and its own local government. Greater London is run by the Mayor of London and 32 borough councils.

Do businesses really vote in the City of London? Yes. The business vote was abolished elsewhere in Britain in 1969 but kept in the City, and the City of London (Ward Elections) Act 2002 widened it. Firms appoint voters based on how many people they employ.

What is the difference between the Lord Mayor and the Mayor of London? The Lord Mayor of the City of London is a mostly ceremonial office dating to about 1189, chosen each year by the City's liverymen. The Mayor of London is a political office created in 2000 and elected by voters across Greater London.

Is the City of London Corporation a local authority? Yes. It does the jobs a London borough does, and it also represents the financial services industry, which no other council does.

Is the City of London Corporation privately owned? No. It is a public local authority. Alongside its public budget, though, it controls a private endowment called City's Cash, which held more than £1.3 billion when disclosed in 2012 and reported net assets of £2.3 billion in March 2016.

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Read the book: The Veil of the Square Mile is out now in softcover, hardcover and ebook, and as an audiobook on ElevenReader.