Historic county | |
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Location | United Kingdom |
Number | 92 |
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The historic counties of the United Kingdom are ancient geographical divisions of the United Kingdom. Although not defined by any one function, over many centuries, various forms of administrative function have been based on them. [3] These have included the areas of parliamentary constituencies, the court of quarter sessions, the areas in which a lord-lieutenant and sheriff serve, territorial units of the Militia, as well as the basis of the original county councils. Although these areas have subsequently changed, the historic counties on which they were originally based have not. [4] The Office for National Statistics recommended them in the Index of Place Names as a stable, unchanging geography which covers the whole of Great Britain. [2]
The division of England into shires, later known as counties, began in the Kingdom of Wessex in the mid-Saxon period, many of the Wessex shires representing previously independent kingdoms. With the Wessex conquest of Mercia in the 9th and 10th centuries, the system was extended to central England. At the time of the Domesday Book, northern England comprised Cheshire and Yorkshire (with the north-east being unrecorded). The remaining counties of the north (Westmorland, Lancashire, Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham) were established in the 12th century. [3] Rutland was first recorded as a county in 1159. [5]
The Scottish counties have their origins in the 'sheriffdoms' first created in the reign of Alexander I (1107–24) and extended by David I (1124–53). The sheriff, operating from a royal castle, was the strong hand of the king in his sheriffdom with all embracing duties – judicial, military, financial and administrative. Sheriffdoms had been established over most of southern and eastern Scotland by the mid-13th century. Although there was a degree of fluidity in the areas of these early sheriffdoms, the pattern that existed in the late mediæval period is believed to be very close to that existing in the mid-nineteenth century. The central and western Highlands and the Isles (where resistance to Government was strongest) were not assigned to shires until the early modern period, Caithness becoming a sheriffdom in 1503 and Orkney in 1540. [3]
The present-day pattern of the historic counties of Wales was established by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. This Act abolished the powers of the lordships of the March and established the Counties or shires of Denbigh, Montgomery, Radnor, Brecknock and Monmouth from the areas of the former lordships. The other eight counties had, by then, already been in existence since at least the 13th century. [3] The historic counties are, however, based on much older traditional areas. [6]
The division of Ireland into counties began during the reign of King John (1199-1216). This process continued for several hundred years, as more of Ireland came under the control of the English crown. Munster was divided into counties in 1571 and Connaught in 1579. Finally, Ulster was shired during the reign of James I. The complete set of counties as they are today were laid down in 1584 (with their modern boundaries not finally settled until 1605, or 1613 in the case of Londonderry albeit that it had existed as County Coleraine from Anglo-Norman times). [3] As in Wales the counties were generally based on earlier, traditional areas. [7]
Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and the United States. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginning of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and spread to most of the rest of England in the tenth century. In some rural parts of Australia, a shire is a local government area; however, in Australia, it is not synonymous with a "county", which is a lands administrative division.
David I or Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler and saint who was Prince of the Cumbrians from 1113 to 1124 and later King of Scotland from 1124 to 1153. The youngest son of Malcolm III and Margaret of Wessex, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093. Perhaps after 1100, he became a dependent at the court of King Henry I of England, by whom he was influenced.
Westmorland is an area of Northern England which was historically a county. People of the area are known as Westmerians. The area includes part of the Lake District and the southern Vale of Eden.
The historic counties of England are areas that were established for administration by the Normans, in many cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires created by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Celts and others. They are alternatively known as ancient counties, traditional counties, former counties or simply as counties. In the centuries that followed their establishment, as well as their administrative function, the counties also helped define local culture and identity. This role continued even after the counties ceased to be used for administration after the creation of administrative counties in 1889, which were themselves amended by further local government reforms in the years following.
The shires of Scotland, or counties of Scotland, are historic subdivisions of Scotland established in the Middle Ages and used as administrative divisions until 1975. Originally established for judicial purposes, from the 17th century they started to be used for local administration purposes as well. The areas used for judicial functions (sheriffdoms) came to diverge from the shires, which ceased to be used for local government purposes after 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.
Strathearn or Strath Earn is the strath of the River Earn, in Scotland, extending from Loch Earn in the West to the River Tay in the east. Strathearn was one of the original provinces of the Kingdom of Alba, and was led by a mormaer and then an Earl. The province was bounded on the north by Atholl, north west by Breadalbane, south west by Menteith, south east by Fife, and on the east by Perthia.
The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the early 10th century, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which would later become the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern colonial periods.
Lieutenancy areas, officially counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies, are the separate areas of the United Kingdom appointed to a lord-lieutenant – a representative of the British monarch. In many cases they have similar demarcation and naming to, but are not necessarily coterminate with, the counties of the United Kingdom.
Chapman codes are a set of 3-letter codes used in genealogy to identify the administrative divisions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
A lord-lieutenant is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. Lord-lieutenant is now an honorary titular position usually awarded to a retired notable person in the county.
The History of local government in Scotland is a complex tale of largely ancient and long established Scottish political units being replaced after the mid 20th century by a frequently changing series of different local government arrangements.
England is divided by a number of different regional schemes for various purposes. Since the creation of the Government Office Regions in 1994 and their adoption for statistical purposes in 1999, some historical regional schemes have become obsolete. However, many alternative regional designations also exist and continue to be widely used.
The England–Wales border, sometimes referred to as the Wales–England border or the Anglo-Welsh border, runs for 160 miles (260 km) from the Dee estuary, in the north, to the Severn estuary in the south, separating England and Wales.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the United Kingdom.
A sheriffdom is a judicial district of Scotland. Originally identical to the Shires of Scotland, from the eighteenth century many counties were grouped to form "sheriffdoms".
An Act for the division of Meath into two shires was an act of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1542 which resulted in the division of County Meath, shired in 1297, into the counties of Meath and Westmeath. The Act commenced on Saint Catherine's Day in 1542 and remains in effect.
The 1964 United Kingdom local elections took place on in April and May 1964.