The 1951 charter reforms included consolidation of city and county offices. When all of the municipalities in Philadelphia County were consolidated into one city in 1854, the surviving county offices often duplicated the efforts of city offices. The new charter allowed for their consolidation, but litigation ensued about which county offices were actually state offices, and thus immune from the city's jurisdiction. A State Supreme Court case decided in 1953 settled the issue, for the most part, leaving the Register of Wills as an independently elected official.
