There have been around 55 parish councils in the current area of Greater London. Almost all were created in 1894 and all were gone by 1936. All were situated in what is now Outer London. No mechanism has ever existed before 2007 to create a parish council in Inner London. Parish councils were created systematically in 1894. All of the country was already divided into civil parishes and any that were outside a borough or urban district (the big towns) got a parish council.
As London was expanding the number of parish councils started to decline. This was because when civil parishes became absorbed by boroughs or urban districts they were no longer permitted to have a parish council. The Local Government Act 1929 created a new mechanism - the county review order - which sped up the process of removing parish councils. The trigger for reform was usually an increase in population. In inter-war Outer London it was not uncommon for a parish to have a tenfold increase in population within a decade as suburban housing was constructed.
The loss of a parish council did not always equal a reduction in identity and local decision making. In this period the change from parish council was often a conversion to urban governance to reflect increased population, rather than an amalgamation with an adjacent district. The efficiency consensus that bigger was better had not yet been reached. However some outcomes of the reviews under the 1929 act were that very large urban districts such as Harrow, Hornchurch and Orpington replaced a number of parishes that had each previously enjoyed a parish council.
1934 was a big year for the parish council in Greater London. By the end of the year only one remained. Interestingly it was the now still semi-rural North Ockendon that survived two more years to 1936. The conversion to urban governance was perhaps in anticipation of house building there. In the event the Second World War and the Metropolitan Green Belt kept the suburban sprawl just a few hundred yards from the parish. North Ockendon was further made an anomaly with the construction of the M25 motorway and is now the only part of Greater London outside the limit it forms. It also holds the distinction of being the last place in Greater London to have a parish council from 1894 to 1936.
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Full list of parish councils and dates abolished
| Chislehurst | 1900 |
| Foots Cray | 1902 |
| Feltham | 1904 |
| Hayes (Hillingdon) | 1904 |
| Ruislip | 1904 |
| Arkley | 1905 |
| Merton | 1907 |
| Yiewsley | 1911 |
| Morden | 1913 |
| Totteridge | 1914 |
| Beddington | 1915 |
| Coulsdon | 1915 |
| Mitcham | 1915 |
| Sanderstead | 1915 |
| Wallington | 1915 |
| Crayford | 1920 |
| Addington | 1925 |
| Dagenham | 1926 |
| Hornchurch | 1926 |
| Northolt | 1928 |
| Cowley | 1929 |
| Harefield | 1929 |
| Hillingdon East | 1929 |
| Ickenham | 1929 |
| West Drayton | 1929 |
| Bedfont | 1930 |
| Cranford | 1930 |
| East Bedfont | 1930 |
| Hanworth | 1930 |
| Harlington | 1930 |
| Harmondsworth | 1930 |
| Edgware | 1931 |
| Chelsfield | 1934 |
| Cranham | 1934 |
| Cudham | 1934 |
| Downe | 1934 |
| Farnborough | 1934 |
| Great Stanmore | 1934 |
| Harrow Weald | 1934 |
| Havering-atte-Bower | 1934 |
| Hayes (Bromley) | 1934 |
| Keston | 1934 |
| Little Stanmore | 1934 |
| Mottingham | 1934 |
| Noak Hill | 1934 |
| North Cray | 1934 |
| Orpington | 1934 |
| Pinner | 1934 |
| Rainham | 1934 |
| St Mary Cray | 1934 |
| St Paul's Cray | 1934 |
| Upminster | 1934 |
| Wennington | 1934 |
| West Wickham | 1934 |
| North Ockendon | 1936 |
