BOROUGH, in England, either an incor porated municipality with an organized gov ernment and a charter of special privileges (municipal borough), or a district which, either by itself or in conjunction with other boroughs, returns a member of Parliament (parliamentary borough). The burp (hill) was originally a hill-fort; then the settlement around it, with its own court, and head officer called a "port-reeve? Under the Norman kings the port-reeves were replaced by royal officers and the boroughs gradually received special charters and were governed by their leading guilds. As their support came to be needed by the governing factions they were given representation in Parliament; and under the Tudors, especially Mary, small boroughs in great profusion were created expressly to return members in the government interest. This practice was put a stop to under Eliza beth. Besides these many of the older bor oughs decayed till they had little or no popu lation, but were allowed to retain their par liamentary power to strengthen the aristocratic and land-owning interest, the proprietors of the sites returning whom they chose: these were called "rotten boroughs,» and the chief was "Old Sarum" (that is, Old Salisbury), with not a single inhabitant but two members of Parliament. Others had only one. Those somewhat larger, but still so small as to be at the dictation of some one person or family, were called "pocket boroughs.* The Reform Bill of 1832 swept away the worst of these anomalies.
In the United States the term is now re stricted to certain incorporated villages below the rank of cities in four States — Connecti cut, New jersey, Minnesota and Pennsylva nia; and is practically synonymous with "town" in most other States and with in Ohio. At the beginning of colonization the natural idea was to transplant the English borough system to America; but the condi tions of settlement and government made it generally inapplicable. In Virginia the term
was applied in the sense of "parliamentary borough? to districts made up of hundreds and plantations, having representation in the house of burgesses, of which in 1619 there were 11; but the municipal borough did not take root there. Lord Baltimore and William Penn were empowered to establish the latter in their colonies of Maryland and Pennsyl vania; but the former did not avail himself of it at all and the latter very little, nor his heirs after him. After the Revolution, how ever, the Pennsylvania legislature granted spe cial borough charters freely and in 1834 passed an act empowering courts of quarter sessions to grant them; in 1851 a general act for their creation and regulation was passed. In New Jersey they were created by special charters as early as the beginning of the 18th century and in 1818 a general act was passed. In Con necticut they have always been created by the legislature in special acts. In Minnesota and Pennsylvania the boundaries of the bor ough are conterminous with the township, forming one of the primary county divisions: in Connecticut and New jersey the borough is only a village government within a town, which in all cases is a separate body including the borough; the latter being only the thickly settled portion within the range generally of the postal, fire, etc., departments and gov erned by a warden and burgesses, correspond ing to the mayor and single-chamber council of a city.
A still further extension was given to the term by the New York legislature in 1897, when the city of Greater New York was con stituted of five °boroughs"— Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Richmond. See BURGH.