Counties of England
The
counties of England are territorial divisions of
England for the purposes of administrative, political and geographical demarcation. Most current counties have foundations in older divisions such as the
Anglo-Saxon shires, and
duchies.
The names, boundaries and functions of these divisions have changed considerably over their history. Indeed, a series of local government reforms from the
19th century onwards has left the exact definition of the term 'county' ambiguous.
The term "counties of England" does not, therefore, refer to a unique canonical set of names or boundaries; in formal use, the type of county relevant to the specific task and period is explicitly stated e.g.
ceremonial county,
registration county,
historic county or
postal county.
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The traditional counties as usually portrayed. |
The accepted system of the 39 traditional counties arose from the
12th to the
16th centuries, though many of the specific areas are much older. They became established as a geographic
reference frame over time. There is some dispute as to whether an
Act passed in
1844 to simplify the counties by reducing the many
exclaves should be accepted or not.
Elected
county councils were set up in England in
1889, taking over many of the administrative functions of the
Quarter Sessions courts, as well as being given other powers over the years. For political purposes, these covered newly established areas known as 'administrative counties', which included such entities as the
County of London, covering parts of historic
Kent,
Middlesex and
Surrey, and the historic counties were not formally abolished. The administrative counties did not cover the independent
county boroughs; and some historic counties were covered by two (
Suffolk,
Sussex,
Northamptonshire,
Hampshire,
Cambridgeshire) or three (
Yorkshire,
Lincolnshire) administrative counties.
Under the
Local Government Act 1888, the areas used for purposes other than local government, such as Lieutenancy, also changed, with the addition of the County of London, and the requirement that every borough and urban district should form part of one county or another. This set of counties was already different from the traditional counties identified above as there were two
counties corporate, the
City of London and
Bristol, included. These counties have later been dubbed '
ceremonial counties', and were shown on
Ordnance Survey maps of the time as 'counties' or later 'geographic counties'.
1965 saw a minor change as the original
County of London became instead the 'administrative area' of
Greater London, in the process absorbing most of the remaining part of Middlesex;
Huntingdonshire merged with the
Soke of Peterborough to form
Huntingdon and Peterborough, and the original
Cambridgeshire administrative county merged with the
Isle of Ely (historically the north of Cambridgeshire, around
Ely) to form
Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely.
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Counties as established in 1974 |
|
County level divisions since 1998 |
On
1 April 1974 the
Local Government Act 1972 came into force. This abolished the existing local government structure in
England and Wales (except in Greater London), replacing it with a new entirely two-tier system. It abolished the previously existing administrative counties and county boroughs (but not the previous non-administrative 'counties') and created a new set of 46 'counties' in England, 6 of which were metropolitan and 40 of which were non-metropolitan.
Some of the counties established by the Act were entirely new, such as
Avon,
Cleveland,
Cumbria,
Hereford and Worcester, and
Humberside, along with the new
metropolitan counties of
Greater Manchester,
Merseyside,
South Yorkshire,
Tyne and Wear,
West Midlands, and
West Yorkshire. The counties of
Cumberland,
Herefordshire,
Rutland,
Westmorland and
Worcestershire vanished from the administrative map, as did the county boroughs.
The abolition of county boroughs resulted in the distinction made between the Lieutenancy counties and the administrative ones becoming unnecessary. Section 216 of the Act adopted the new counties for ceremonial and judicial purposes.
A further
local government reform in the 1990s grouped the counties into
regions, created many small
unitary authorities possessing county level status (re-establishing in effect if not in name the old county boroughs), and restored
Herefordshire,
Rutland and
Worcestershire as administrative entities.
There are now 81 county level entities outside
Greater London. Of these, 34 are so-called 'shire counties' with both
county councils and
district councils, and 40 are unitary authorities. Six are metropolitan counties. The remaining one is
Berkshire, whose county council has been abolished and its districts have become unitary authorities.
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Ceremonial counties since 1998 |
Because of the local government reforms in the 1990s, the distinction between the counties used for local government and those used for Lieutenancy, abolished in 1974, was revived, and a new term, 'ceremonial county', coined. Most unitary authorities remained associated with the same county for Lieutenancy, and in a few areas the old ceremonial counties were restored (
Bristol,
East Riding of Yorkshire,
Herefordshire,
Rutland,
Worcestershire).
These are also known as the
geographic counties and are generally used to describe a place's location in England. They are also taken into consideration by the boundary commission when they draw up boundaries for constituencies, for example.
The former postal counties as used by the
Post Office are no longer required on addresses. They included most of the
1974 changes, but did not acknowledge
Greater Manchester or
Greater London as postal counties.
*
Home Counties*
Shire Counties*
Counties of England, Wales and Scotland prior to the 1974 Boundary Changes*
Administrative Areas of England - gives details of the 1974 changes
