Woolwich Town Hall
Woolwich Town Hall is the third seat of local government in Woolwich. It was built in 1903–05 when the second town hall, dating from 1842, had become too small. The first town hall was built only a few years earlier, around 1839, but was almost immediately sold to the Metropolitan Police. Earlier, the local government of Woolwich, then a civil parish in the County of Kent, met in a room next to the poorhouse and in the parish church of St Mary Magdalene. The old town hall was initially shared with Woolwich County Court. In 1855 the Metropolis Management Act provided every parish in the metropolitan area with its own local administration. In 
1889 the parish of Woolwich became part of the newly formed County of London. In 1900 the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich was formed from the parishes of Woolwich, Plumstead and Eltham. This prompted the construction of a larger and more representative town hall.
Woolwich (parish)
The main part of the parish was a roughly triangular area south of the River Thames, including the town of Woolwich. The boundary with Plumstead to the east was very close to the centre of the town, located approximately where the Woolwich Arsenal station is now. The parish narrowed further south, including Woolwich Common and reaching to Shooter's Hill Road. The western boundary at this point was with Charlton Common in the parish of Charlton. North of the Thames the parish included two nearby sections of land known as North Woolwich. The western part was divided from the eastern section by the parish of East Ham. The eastern section stretched to the River Roding and had a boundary with the parish of Barking. The former area of the parish is now part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich to the south of the River Thames and the London Borough of Newham to the north.