County Borough of Southend-on-Sea County Borough of Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea was a local government district from 1866 to 1974 around the seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. Southend adopted the Local Government Act 1858 and a local board was established in 1866. It became an urban sanitary district in 1875. It was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1892. The name was changed from Southend to Southend-on-Sea in 1893. It gained the status of county borough in 1914. The local government district originally consisted of the South End of the parish of Prittlewell. This became a separate parish of St John the Baptist for
Clacton-on-Sea across to Calais until the early 1960s. Butlins returned after the war. This, the building of the nearby chalet town of Jaywick, caravaning. and the movement of retired Londoners into the area, largely transformed the town from being an East Anglian resort into an extension of East London. In 1964 the town was in the national news when Moped Mods and motor-bile Rockers clashed on the sea front and arrests were made. Since around 1970 several well-known local buildings have been demolished, including the Art-Deco 1930s Odeon Cinema (an architectural loss to the town), the Warwick Castle pub, the Waverley