Everything about The Historic Counties Of England totally explained
The
historic counties of England are ancient subdivisions of
England. They were used for various functions for several hundred years and continue to form, albeit with considerably altered boundaries, the basis of modern local government. They are alternatively known as
ancient counties.
The counties
The historic counties are as follows:
The map omits all
exclaves (detached parts) apart from the
Furness part of Lancashire south of Cumberland and Westmorland.
Monmouthshire was previously considered to be a county of England, but is now generally accepted to be part of
Wales.
Naming and abbreviations
Counties named after towns were often legally known as the "County of" followed by the name of the town —
Yorkshire would be referred to as "County of York". This usage was followed even where there was no town by that name, such as the "County of Berks". The modern usage is to use the suffix "-shire" only for counties named after towns, and for those which would otherwise have only one syllable. Kent was a former kingdom of the
Jutes, so "Kentshire" was never used. The name of
County Durham is anomalous. The expected form would be "Durhamshire", but it's never used. This is ascribed to that county's history as a
county palatine ruled by the
Bishop of Durham.
In the past, usages such as "Devonshire", "Dorsetshire" and "Somersetshire" were frequent. There is still a
Duke of Devonshire, who isn't properly called the Duke of Devon.
Customary abbreviations exist for many of the counties. In most cases these consist of simple truncation, usually with an "s" at the end, such as "Berks." for
Berkshire and "Bucks." for
Buckinghamshire. Some abbreviations are not obvious, such as "Salop" for
Shropshire, "Oxon" for
Oxfordshire, "Hants" for
Hampshire and "Northants" for
Northamptonshire.
Area
Accurate measurements of the area of counties were not available until the nineteenth century, as a by-product of the
Ordnance Survey's boundary survey. The officially recorded areas were adjusted to match the new data at the time of the 1861
census, replacing the less reliable figures previously used by the
Registrar General.
For a list of the historic counties by their area, see:
Origins
The establishment of counties had begun by the 12th century, although many boundaries date from far earlier, incorporating
Saxon and
Celtic divisions; however, some borders didn't assume their commonly-recognised form until considerably later, in some cases the 16th Century. Because of their differing origins, the counties
varied considerably in size. The county boundaries were fairly static between the 16th Century
Laws in Wales acts and the
Local Government Act 1888.
Southern England
In southern England, the counties were subdivisions of the Kingdom of
Wessex, and in many areas represented annexed, previously independent, kingdoms or other tribal territories.
Kent derives from the
Kingdom of Kent, and
Essex,
Sussex and
Middlesex come from the
East Saxons,
South Saxons and
Middle Saxons. Norfolk and Suffolk were subdivisions representing the "North Folk" and "South Folk" of the
Kingdom of East Anglia. Only one county on the south coast of England now usually takes the suffix "-shire".
Hampshire is named after the former town of "Hamwic" (sic), the site of which is now a part of the city of
Southampton.
Midlands
When Wessex conquered
Mercia in the 9th and 10th centuries, it subdivided the area into various shires, which tended to take the name of the main town (the
county town) of the county, along with "-shire". Examples of these include
Northamptonshire and
Warwickshire. In many cases these have since been worn down — for example,
Cheshire was originally "Chestershire". Rutland was an anomalous territory or
Soke, associated with
Nottinghamshire, that eventually became considered the smallest county.
Lincolnshire was the successor to the
Kingdom of Lindsey, and took on the territories of
Kesteven and
Holland when
Stamford became the only
Danelaw borough to fail to become a
county town.
The border with Wales wasn't set until the
Laws in Wales Act 1535 — this remains the modern border. In the Domesday Book the border counties had included parts of what would later become Wales —
Monmouth, for example, being included in
Herefordshire. The ancient town of
Ludlow, now in
Shropshire, was included in Herefordshire in Domesday.
Northern England
Much of Northumbria was also shired, the best known of these counties being
Hallamshire and
Cravenshire. The Normans didn't use these divisions, and so they're not generally included as historic counties. The huge Yorkshire was a successor to the Viking
Kingdom of York, and at the time of the
Domesday Book in 1086 was considered to include what was to become northern
Lancashire, and parts of
Cumberland, and
Westmorland. Most of the later Cumberland and Westmorland was under
Scottish rule until 1092. After the
Norman Conquest in 1066 and the
harrying of the North, much of the north of the country was left depopulated; at the time of the
Domesday Book areas of the northern part of England, as it then existed, were included in the returns for
Cheshire and
Yorkshire. However, there's some disagreement about the status of some of this land. The area in between the
Ribble and the
Mersey rivers (referred to as "Inter Ripam et Mersham" in the Domesday Book) was included in the returns for Cheshire, but recent sources report that this didn't mean that this land was actually part of Cheshire, though one source implies that it was. Part of the domain of the
Bishops of Durham,
Hexhamshire was split off and was considered an independent county until 1572 when it became part of Northumberland.
Role
By the late Middle Ages, the county was used as the basis of a number of functions. were appointed in each county. At the head of the legal hierarchy were the
High Sheriff and the
Custos rotulorum, (or keeper of the rolls), for the county.
Until the
nineteenth century law enforcement was mostly carried out at the
parish level. With an increasingly mobile population the system became outdated. Following the successful establishment of the
Metropolitan Police in London, the
County Police Act 1839 empowered justices of the peace to form county constabularies outside of boroughs. The formation of county police forces was made compulsory by the
County and Borough Police Act 1856.
Defence
In the 1540s the office of
Lord Lieutenant was instituted. The lieutenants had a military role, previously exercised by the sheriffs, and were made responsible for raising and organising the county
militia. The county lieutenancies were subsequently given responsibility for the
Volunteer Force. In 1871 the lieutenants lost their position as head of the militia, and the office became largely ceremonial. The
Cardwell and
Childers Reforms of the
British Army linked the recruiting areas of infantry regiments to the counties.
Parliamentary representation
Each county sent two
Knights of the Shire to the
House of Commons (apart from the burgesses sent by boroughs within the county). Yorkshire gained two members in 1821 when
Grampound was disenfranchised. The
Great Reform Act of 1832 reapportioned members throughout the counties, many of which were also split into parliamentary divisions. Constituencies based on the historic county boundaries remained in use until 1918.
Local government
From the
sixteenth century the county was increasingly used as a unit of
local government. The Justices of the Peace took on various administrative functions known as "county business". This was transacted at the
quarter sessions, summoned four times a year by the lord lieutenant. By the nineteenth century the county magistrates exercised powers over the licensing of alehouses, the construction of bridges, prisons and asylums, superintendence of main roads, public buildings and charitable institutions, and the regulation of weights and measures. The justices were empowered to levy local taxes to support these activities, and in 1739 these were unified as a single "county rate" under the control of a county treasurer. In order to build and maintain roads and bridges, a salaried county surveyor was to be appointed.
By the 1880s it was suggested that it would be more efficient if a wider variety of functions were provided on a county-wide basis.
Subdivisions
Some of the counties had major subdivisions. Of these, the most significant were the divisions of Yorkshire; the
East Riding,
West Riding,
North Riding and the
ainsty of York. Since Yorkshire is so big, its
ridings became established as geographic terms quite apart from their original role as administrative divisions. The second largest county,
Lincolnshire, was divided into three historic "parts" (intermediate in size between county and
wapentake); they were
Lindsey,
Holland and
Kesteven. Other divisions include those of Kent into
East Kent and
West Kent, and of
Sussex into
East Sussex and
West Sussex.
Several counties had
liberties or
Sokes within them that were administered separately.
Cambridgeshire had the
Isle of Ely, and
Northamptonshire had the
Soke of Peterborough. Such divisions were used by such entities as the
Quarter Sessions courts and were inherited by the later
administrative county areas which were under the control of
county councils.
Most English counties were subdivided into smaller subdivisions called
hundreds; Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were divided into wapentakes (a unit of Danish origin); and Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland were divided into
wards, areas originally organised for military purposes, and centred on a castle. Kent and Sussex had an intermediate level between their major subdivisions and their hundreds, known as
lathes in Kent and
rapes in Sussex. Hundreds or their equivalents are divided into
tithings and
parishes (the only class of these divisions still used administratively), which in turn were divided into
townships and
manors. The
Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex was further divided into four divisions in the 17th Century which replaced the functions of the hundred. The borough and parish were the principal providers of local services throughout England until the creation of ad-hoc boards and, later, local government districts.
Change
Detached parts
The historic counties had many anomalies, and many small
exclaves, where a parcel of land would be politically part of one county despite not being physically connected to the rest of the county. The
Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 modified the counties by abolishing the many
enclaves of counties within others, which had already been done for Parliamentary purposes by the Great Reform Act.
Large exclaves affected by the 1844 Act included the County Durham exclaves of
Islandshire,
Bedlingtonshire and
Norhamshire, which were incorporated into
Northumberland; and the
Halesowen exclave of Shropshire, which was incorporated into Worcestershire.
Exclaves which the 1844 Act didn't touch include the part of
Derbyshire around
Donisthorpe, locally in
Leicestershire; and most of the larger exclaves of
Worcestershire, including the town of
Dudley, which remained surrounded by
Staffordshire. Additionally the
Furness portion of
Lancashire remained separated from the rest of Lancashire by a narrow strip of Westmorland — though accessible by the
Morecambe Bay tidal flats.
1889
When the first county councils were set up in 1889, they covered newly created entities known as administrative counties; which consisted of counties less independent areas known as
county boroughs – several historic subdivisions with separate county administrations were also created administrative counties, particularly the separate ridings of
Yorkshire. The
Local Government Act 1888 also contained wording to create both a new "administrative county" and "county" of
London, and to ensure the statutory "counties" consisted of agglomerations of administrative counties and
county boroughs. These counties were to be used "for all purposes, whether sheriff, lieutenant, custos rotulorum, justices, militia, coroner, or other". In retrospect, these statutory counties can be identified as the predecessors of the ceremonial counties of England. These counties are the ones usually shown on maps of the early to mid 20th century, and largely displaced the historic counties in such uses. The censuses of 1891, 1901 and 1911 provided figures for the "ancient counties".
Several towns are historically divided between counties, including
Banbury,
Burton upon Trent,
Newmarket,
Peterborough,
Royston, Stamford,
Tamworth,
Todmorden and
Warrington — in Newmarket and Tamworth the county boundary ran right up the middle of the high street, and in Todmorden the boundary is said to run through the town hall. The 1888 Act ensured that every urban sanitary district would be considered to be part of a single county. This principle would be maintained in the 20th century : when
county boroughs such as
Birmingham,
Manchester,
Reading,
Sheffield,
Stockport expanded into neighbouring counties, the area added became associated with another county.
1965 and 1974
On
April 1,
1965 a number of changes came into effect. The new administrative area of Greater London was created, resulting in the abolition of the counties of London and Middlesex, at the same time taking in areas from surrounding counties. On the same date the new counties of
Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely and
Huntingdon and Peterborough were formed by the merger of pairs of administrative counties. The new areas were also adopted for lieutenancy and shrievalty purposes.
In 1974 a major local government reform took place, through the
Local Government Act 1972. The act abolished administrative counties and county boroughs and divided England (except Greater London and the Isles of Scilly) into counties. These were of two types: "metropolitan" and "non-metropolitan" counties. Apart from local government, the new counties were "substituted for counties of any other description" for judicial, shrievalty, lieutenancy and other purposes. Several counties, such as
Cumberland, Herefordshire,
Rutland, Westmorland and
Worcestershire vanished from the administrative map, whilst new entities such as
Avon,
Cleveland,
Cumbria and
Humberside appeared, in addition to the six new
metropolitan counties.
The built-up areas of conurbations tend to cross historic county boundaries freely. Examples here include
Bournemouth/
Poole/
Christchurch (
Dorset and
Hampshire)
Greater Manchester (Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire),
Merseyside (Cheshire and Lancashire),
Teesside (Yorkshire and County Durham),
Tyneside (County Durham and
Northumberland) and
West Midlands (Shropshire,
Staffordshire,
Warwickshire and
Worcestershire).
Greater London itself straddles five historic counties —
Essex,
Hertfordshire, Kent,
Middlesex,
Surrey — and the London urban area sprawls into Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. The Local Government Act 1972 sought generally to unite conurbations within a single county, while retaining the historic county boundaries as far as was practicable. the
Post Office was able to alter many of its
postal counties in accordance with the 1965 and 1974 reforms, but not all. The two major exceptions were
Greater London and
Greater Manchester. Greater London wasn't adopted in 1965 with the Post Office at the time stating it would have been too expensive, whilst it gave as its reason for not adopting Greater Manchester the ambiguity of the name with the
Manchester post town. Perhaps as a result of this, the historic counties appear not to have fallen completely out of use for locating the places in Greater Manchester; along with areas of Greater London that are not part of the
London postal district. It is common for people to speak of
Uxbridge, Middlesex or
Bromley, Kent (which are outside of the London postal district), but much less so to speak of
Brixton,
Surrey or
West Ham, Essex (which are inside it).
In 1996, following further local government reform and the modernisation of its sorting equipment, the Royal Mail ceased to use counties at all in the direction of mail and instead now use the outward code (first half) of the postcode. The former postal counties were removed in 2000 from its
Postcode Address File database and included in an 'alias file', which is used to cross references postally-not-required details that may be added by users such as former street names or historic, administrative and former postal counties.
Restoration of historic county boundaries
A review of the structure of local government in England by the
Local Government Commission for England led to the restoration of the
East Riding of Yorkshire,
Herefordshire,
Rutland and
Worcestershire as administrative areas in the 1990s: also the abolition of Avon, Cleveland and Humberside, and the restoration of the traditional borders between Somerset and Gloucestershire; Durham and Yorkshire; and Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes in these areas. The case of Huntingdonshire was considered twice, but the Commission found that "there was no exceptional county allegiance to Huntingdonshire, as had been perceived in Rutland and Herefordshire".
The
Association of British Counties, and their regional affiliates, such as the
Friends of Real Lancashire and the
Yorkshire Ridings Society, are pressure groups who assert that, on the basis that they were not formally abolished, the counties continue to exist with their ancient boundaries. They seek to promote greater public awareness of what they term 'traditional counties' and broadly wish to see counties realigned to the historic boundaries.
A
direct action group,
CountyWatch was formed in 2004 to remove what they consider to be wrongly-placed county boundary signs that don't mark the historic or traditional county boundaries of England and
Wales. They have removed, re-sorted or erected a number of what they claim to be "wrongly-sited" county boundary signs in various parts of England. For instance Lancashire, where thirty signs were removed; the Dorset and Hampshire border; Durham; Lincolnshire and Somerset. CountyWatch have often been criticised for their actions by the councils who erected the signs. For instance in Lincolnshire, where Lincolnshire County Council attacked the group for taking council property stating that "it will cost the taxpayer to put the signs back up". Others have praised the group including an article entitled "Defending the land of our fathers", in
The Northern Echo newspaper which, in the context of the removal of signs in Durham, praised the group's actions, after Durham council issued a statement that CountyWatch were "nothing more than sheer vandalism, no less mindless or anti-social than smashing bus stops or phone boxes". This followed the removal of signs in Durham. The Northern Echo article however called the council statement, "a trifle wide of the mark" and stated that the cost of re-siting the signs was "paltry", ending the article, "Carry on CountyWatch".
Vice counties
The
vice counties, used for biological recording since 1852, are largely based on historic county boundaries. They ignore all exclaves and are modified by subdividing large counties and merging smaller areas into neighbouring counties; such as Rutland with Leicestershire and Furness with Westmorland. The static boundaries make
Longitudinal study of biodiversity easier. They also cover the rest of Great Britain and Ireland.
Current use
As of 2008, the historic counties continue to form, with considerably altered boundaries, many of the
ceremonial and
non-metropolitan counties in England.
†The contemporary counties which Sussex and Yorkshire have to a large degree been divided into continue to use the historic county names with a prefix (such as
East Sussex and
North Yorkshire).
Notes and References
Bibliography
Crosby, A. (1996). A History of Cheshire. (The Darwen County History Series.) Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0850339324.
Harris, B. E., and Thacker, A. T. (1987). The Victoria History of the County of Chester. (Volume 1: Physique, Prehistory, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Domesday). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0197227619.
Morgan, P. (1978). Domesday Book Cheshire: Including Lancashire, Cumbria, and North Wales. Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0850331404.
Phillips A. D. M., and Phillips, C. B. (2002), A New Historical Atlas of Cheshire. Chester, UK: Cheshire County Council and Cheshire Community Council Publications Trust. ISBN 0904532461.
Sylvester, D. (1980). A History of Cheshire. (The Darwen County History Series). (2nd Edition.) London and Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0850333849.Further Information
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