Counties of England
The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purposes of lieutenancy; the 84 metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties for local government; and the 39 historic counties. In most cases a ceremonial county shares its name with a local government county, but often covering a wider area.
The historic counties of England were mostly formed as shires or divisions of the earlier kingdoms, which gradually united by the 10th century to become England. The counties were initially used primarily for the administration of justice, overseen by a sheriff. They subsequently gained other roles, notably serving as constituencies and as areas for organising the militia, which was the responsibility of the lord-lieutenant. The county magistrates also gradually took on some administrative functions.
Administrative counties with elected county councils were created in 1889, taking over the administrative functions of the magistrates. The functions and territories of the counties have evolved since then, with significant amendments on several occasions, notably in 1889, 1965 and 1974.
Following the 1974 reforms, England had a two-tier structure of upper-tier county councils and lower-tier district councils, with each county being designated as either a metropolitan county or a non-metropolitan county. From 1995 onwards numerous unitary authorities have been established in the non-metropolitan counties, usually by creating a non-metropolitan county containing a single district and having one council perform both county and district functions. Since 1996 there have been two legal definitions of county: the counties as defined in local government legislation, and the counties for the purposes of lieutenancy.
The local government counties today cover England except for Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. There are six metropolitan counties and 78 non-metropolitan counties. Of the non-metropolitan counties, 21 are governed in a two-tier arrangement with an upper-tier county council and a number of lower-tier district councils, 56 are governed by a unitary authority performing both county and district functions, and one is governed by six unitary authorities whilst remaining legally one county.
For the purposes of lieutenancy England is divided into 48 counties, which are defined as groups of one or more local government counties.
Counties are also frequently used for non-administrative purposes, including culture, tourism and sport, with many organisations, clubs and leagues being organised on a county basis. For the purpose of sorting and delivering mail, England was divided into postal counties until 1996; they were then abandoned by Royal Mail in favour of postcodes.
History
Origins
Most of the historic English counties were established between the 7th and 11th centuries. Counties were initially used for the administration of justice and organisation of the militia, all overseen by a sheriff. The sheriff was usually appointed by the monarch but in some cases, known as the counties palatine, the right to appoint sheriffs rested elsewhere; for example with the Bishop of Durham for County Durham, and with the Earl of Chester for Cheshire.A county's magistrates sat four times a year as the quarter sessions. For more serious cases judges visited each county twice a year for the assizes. In some larger counties the practice arose of holding the quarter sessions separately for subdivisions of the county, including the Ridings of Yorkshire, the Parts of Lincolnshire and the Eastern and Western divisions of Sussex. The quarter sessions were also gradually given various civil functions, such as providing asylums, maintaining main roads and bridges, and the regulation of alehouses.
When parliaments began to be called from the 13th century onwards, the counties formed part of the system for electing members of parliament. Certain towns and cities were parliamentary boroughs sending their own representatives, and the remainder of each county served as a county constituency, with the MPs for such constituencies being known as knights of the shire.
From Tudor times onwards a lord-lieutenant was appointed to oversee the militia, taking some of the functions previously held by the sheriff. Some larger towns and cities were made self-governing counties corporate, starting with London in, with the right to hold their own courts and appoint their own sheriffs. The counties corporate continued to be deemed part of the wider county for the purposes of lieutenancy, with the exception of London which had its own lieutenants. The Ridings of Yorkshire had their own lieutenants from 1660 onwards. Sometimes smaller counties shared either a sheriff or lieutenant; the same person was usually appointed to be lieutenant of both Cumberland and Westmorland until 1876, whilst Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire shared a sheriff until 1965.
The counties' role as constituencies effectively ceased following the Reform Act 1832 and the associated Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832. Most counties were divided into smaller constituencies, with the group of constituencies within each county being termed the 'parliamentary county'.
County boundaries were sometimes adjusted, for example by some of the Inclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries. County and other boundaries were not centrally recorded with any accuracy before the 19th century, but were instead known by local knowledge and custom. When the Ordnance Survey started producing large scale maps, they had to undertake extensive research with locals to establish where exactly the boundaries were. Boundaries were recorded by the Ordnance Survey gradually in a process which started in 1841 and was not fully completed until 1888. Many counties had detached exclaves, away from the main body of the county. Most exclaves were eliminated by boundary adjustments under the Counties Act 1844.
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 created poor law unions, which were defined as groups of parishes and frequently crossed county boundaries. Parishes were typically assigned to a union centred on a nearby town, whether or not that town was in the same county. The unions were administered by elected boards of guardians, and formed the basis for the registration districts created in 1837. Each union as a whole was assigned to a registration county, which therefore differed in places from the legal counties. The registration counties were used for census reporting from 1851 to 1911. The unions also formed the basis for the sanitary districts created in 1872, which took on various local government functions.
The county of Westmorland was formed in 1227. From then until 1889 there were generally agreed to be 39 counties in England, although there were some liberties such as the Liberty of Ripon which were independent from their host counties for judicial purposes. The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 formally absorbed Wales into the kingdom of England and completed its division into 13 counties on the English model. Contemporary lists after that sometimes included Monmouthshire as a 40th English county, on account of its assizes being included in the Oxford circuit rather than one of the Welsh circuits. The 39 historic counties were:
- Bedfordshire
- Berkshire
- Buckinghamshire
- Cambridgeshire
- Cheshire
- Cornwall
- Cumberland
- Derbyshire
- Devon
- Dorset
- Durham
- Essex
- Gloucestershire
- Hampshire
- Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire
- Huntingdonshire
- Kent
- Lancashire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Middlesex
- Norfolk
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire
- Oxfordshire
- Rutland
- Shropshire
- Somerset
- Staffordshire
- Suffolk
- Surrey
- Sussex
- Warwickshire
- Westmorland
- Wiltshire
- Worcestershire
- Yorkshire
Creation of county councils
Some towns and cities were considered large enough to run their own county-level services and so were made county boroughs, independent from the new county councils. Urban sanitary districts which straddled county boundaries were placed entirely in one county. A new County of London was created covering the area which had been administered by the Metropolitan Board of Works since 1856, which covered the City of London and parts of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. In those counties where the quarter sessions had been held separately for different parts of the county, separate county councils were created for each part.
The area controlled by a county council was termed an administrative county. The 1888 Act also adjusted the county boundaries for all other purposes, including judicial functions, sheriffs and lieutenants, to match groups of the administrative counties and county boroughs. As such, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Suffolk and Sussex retained a single sheriff and lieutenant each, despite being split between multiple administrative counties. Yorkshire kept a single sheriff, whilst each of its ridings retained a separate lieutenant and formed their own administrative counties. In 1890 the Isle of Wight was made an administrative county whilst remaining part of Hampshire for other purposes.
Constituencies were not changed by the 1888 Act and so the parliamentary counties continued to be defined as they had been when the constituencies were last reviewed in 1885, by reference to the counties as they had then existed. This led to a mismatch in some areas between the parliamentary counties and the counties as had been adjusted for all other purposes. This lasted until the constituencies were next reviewed in 1918, when they were realigned to nest within the newer versions of the counties.
The 1888 Act used the term 'entire county' to refer to the wider version of the county, including any associated county boroughs or parts which had been made administrative counties. The informal term 'geographical county' was also used on Ordnance Survey maps to distinguish the wider version of the county from the administrative counties.
There were various adjustments to county boundaries after 1889. There were numerous changes following the Local Government Act 1894, which converted rural sanitary districts into rural districts and established parish councils, but said that districts and parishes were no longer allowed to straddle county boundaries. The number of county boroughs gradually increased, and boundaries were occasionally adjusted to accommodate urban areas which were developing across county boundaries. In 1931 the boundaries between Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire were adjusted to transfer 26 parishes between the three counties, largely to eliminate the remaining exclaves not addressed in 1844.
The functions of county councils gradually grew. Notable expansions in their responsibilities included taking over education from the abolished school boards in 1902, and taking over the assistance of the poor from the abolished boards of guardians in 1930.