Ealing was a local government district from 1863 to 1965 around the town of Ealing.

A local board of health was formed for the southern part of the parish of Ealing, Middlesex, in 1863. In 1873 the board's area was extended to the rest of the parish.

It was created an urban district in 1894, by the Local Government Act 1894. In 1901 it was granted a charter of incorporation to become the first municipal borough in Middlesex. The urban district council was replaced by a corporation consisting of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors.

The borough was greatly enlarged in 1926 when it absorbed the urban districts of Greenford (including the parishes of Perivale and West Twyford) and Hanwell. Accordingly the size of the borough council was increased: by 1960 it consisted of a mayor, 16 aldermen and 48 councillors. In 1952 there was a failed attempt to gain county borough status.

In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, the municipal borough was abolished and its former area transferred to Greater London to be combined with that of other districts to form the present-day London Borough of Ealing.

Coordinates: 51°30′40″N 0°18′21″W / 51.5111°N 0.3058°W / 51.5111; -0.3058

Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located 7.9 miles (12.7 km) west of Charing Cross and around 12 miles (19.3 km) from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village in the county of Middlesex and formed an ancient parish. Improvement in communications with London, culminating with the opening of the railway station in 1838, shifted the local economy to market garden supply and eventually to suburban development. As part of the growth of London in the 20th century, Ealing significantly expanded and increased in population, becoming a municipal borough in 1901 and has formed part of Greater London since 1965. It now forms a significant commercial and retail centre with a developed night time economy.

The Saxon name for Ealing was recorded c.700 as 'Gillingas', meaning 'place of the people associated with Gilla', from the personal name Gilla and the Old English suffix '-ingas', meaning 'people of'. Over the centuries, the name has changed, and has been known as 'Illing', 1130; 'Gilling', 1243; and 'Ylling', 1254, until 'Ealing' became the standard spelling in the 19th century.

Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in Scotland from 1833 to 1975 with the reform of royal burghs and creation of police burghs.

Boroughs had existed in England and Wales since mediæval times. By the late Middle Ages they had come under royal control, with corporations established by royal charter. These corporations were not popularly elected: characteristically they were self-selecting oligarchies, were nominated by tradesmen's guilds or were under the control of the lord of the manor. A Royal Commission was appointed in 1833 to investigate the various borough corporations in England and Wales. In all 263 towns were found to have some form of corporation created by charter or in existence by prescription. The majority had self-elected common councils, whose members served for life. Where there was an election, the incumbent members of the corporation often effectively nominated the electorate. Eleven boroughs were manorial court leets. Following the report of the royal commission, legislation was introduced to reform borough corporations.

John Burgess Wilson (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic.

The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works. It was adapted into a highly controversial 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers. He was a prominent critic, writing acclaimed studies of classic writers such as William Shakespeare, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway. In 2008, The Times placed Burgess number 17 on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Burgess was an accomplished musician and linguist. He composed over 250 musical works, including a first symphony around age 18, wrote a number of libretti, and translated, among other works, Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus the King and Carmen.

Julian Heward Bell (4 February 1908 – 18 July 1937) was an English poet, and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell (who was the elder sister of Virginia Woolf). The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother, and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett is his half-sister. His relationship with his mother is explored in Susan Sellers' novel Vanessa and Virginia.

He was brought up mainly at Charleston, Sussex. He was educated at Leighton Park School and King's College, Cambridge, where he joined the Cambridge Apostles. He was a friend of some of the Cambridge Five, and sometimes claimed as Anthony Blunt's lover. (In the BBC dramatisation Cambridge Spies he appears as Guy Burgess's lover.) After graduating he worked towards a college fellowship, without success.

In 1935 he went to China, to a position teaching English at Wuhan University. He wrote letters describing his relationship with a married lover, K.; the identity of this woman became a sensitive issue when the Chinese-British novelist Hong Ying published a fictionalised account, K: The Art of Love in 1999. After a 2002 ruling by a Chinese court that the book was 'defamation of the dead', the author rewrote the book, which was published in 2003 under the title The English Lover.