User:Morwen/wishlist

Unanswered questions regarding counties

• how precisely do the Domesday counties align with the "traditional" ones (with special reference to the Welsh borders). Ludlow apparently in Herefordshire Domesday, for example. also the North, particularly Lancashire

• text of the Act which created the Welsh counties - what marcher lordships did they replace, which bits got annexed to English counties? (rather low-priority) (there are actually two phases here - 1284 and 1536)

• what was Hexhamshire exactly?

• origins of Rutland

• more on establishment of parliamentary counties

• exact text of Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844. we have only seen a small quote. we have the entire sentence now.
  • list of things that got exchanged, list of things that didn't

• when did the term "ancient county" first get used in the census?
  • did it include the changes of 1844 in its definition of "ancient counties"?
    • I have e-mailed Vision of Britain this question.
      • Judging from areas User:Lozleader supplied, it is certain that "ancient county" included the 1844 changes.
• "ancient county" definitely included the 1844 changes in the census.

• was there any popular controversy at the time regarding the county of London, and other alterations of county borders?

• to what extent did the Ordnance Survey create boundaries as well as depict them when it did its original c. 19th surveys?

• did Wythenshawe became part of the Duchy of Lancaster when it became part of Manchester?
  • I have emailed the Duchy of Lancaster's office about this and they are getting back to me apparently. There should be actual practical differences, in that intestate property in Wythenshawe will either go to the Duchy or the Treasury, so they should know.
  • this may be dealt with in the Act or Order that expanded Manchester. or it might not be.
  • The Duchy tell me that they "think" the borders haven't changed since 1351. If true this means that Wythenshawe was legally considered part of the County of Lancaster but not the Duchy of Lancaster. Which seems possible, but multiplies entities needlessly and also would have caused administrative hassles.

• when were the counties corporate abolished? were they, in fact, abolished?
  • apparently never

• what on earth is going on with Bristol's Lieutenancy? was it a separate area or was it swapped between Gloucester and Somerset or what? did anyone ever hold it and not one of the others prior to 1996?

• did Durham and Chester have their county palatine status formally revoked, or did they just have the functions stripped without the actual 'title' being removed?

• who was Lord Lieutenant in Berwick in 1800? (because I think Berwick was entirely surrounded on the south by North Durham)

• when did the counties palatine get Lord Lieutenants and who did they represent?
  • Lord Lieutenant of Durham seems to have existed for as long as the others. it was sometimes held the Bishop of Durham, sometimes not.

• who was Lord Lieutenant in the City of York, seeing as it was outside the three Ridings?
  • York was in the West Riding for this purpose (as was the Ainsty)

• where was Teesside county borough placed for Lieutenancy, seeing as it had large chunks in North Riding (Middlesbrough) and in Durham (Stockton).
  • possibly North Riding?

• there is a Lord Lieutenant of Belfast and Londonderry City. Were there ever Lord Lieutenants for the other county boroughs, now in the Republic of Ireland? What was going on with Lieutenancy in Ireland prior to partition anyway?

• contemporary Ordnance Survey information about the meaning of 'county'. apparently they shifted in usage from 'county' to 'geographic county'. when?

• details on the grant of the status of "Royal County" to Berkshire. To what, precisely? Was the title confirmed after 1974? I note that legislation speaks of the "county council of the royal county of Berkshire", and there is a grant of a life peerage to someone ", of Caversham, in the Royal County of Berkshire".
  • The non-metropolitan county of Berkshire has the title 'royal county' by Letters Patent.

• details on the change of name from Southamptonshire to Hampshire. What changed its name? Was there a change in the title of the Lieutenancy?

• wording of Order/Act establishing Huntingdon and Peterborough with respect to 'counties' and Lieutenancy etc

• wording of London Government Act 1963 with respect to 'counties' and Lieutenancy etc

• wording of Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 with respect to 'counties' and Lieutenancy etc

• proposed Welsh local government reforms from the 1950s onwards consistently used ancient Welsh kingdoms as names. why? presumably linked to welsh nationalist stirrings?

• to what extent were there protests in 1974? how many of these were actually protests in favour of non-"traditional" arrangements also being abolished, like the County of Bristol or the Isle of Wight?
  • it might be nice to get the Bill as introduced for a complete list of changes that were originally planned.
  • details of Hereford Bull protest

• relevant statements from Hansard, with context.

• Post Office rationale for accepting changes?

• how ancient were the divisions of the Soke of Peterborough, Isle of Ely, East/West Suffolk, Kent, Sussex, the Ridings, and the Parts of Lincolnshire?
  • apparently Lindsey itself had ridings too. can't find anything about this other than there mere existence. we now have a list and I have access to a map. hurrah.

• "County of Gloucester" vs "Gloucestershire" vs "County of Gloucestershire"
  • the first usage is archaic, the second apparently goes back a long time but was originally colloquial, the third is modern, but would probably have been regarded as a redundancy a long time ago. is this right?

• When did forms like "Devonshire", "Somersetshire", "Rutlandshire" (ugh) etc actually fall out of use?

Some other random unanswered questions

• Areas the Passenger Transport Authorities covered prior to 1974
• Areas of the designated new towns
  • Original Telford plans
• Original proposals both of the Local Government White Paper in 1971, and of the Local Government Bill as introduced

• Area the Metropolitan Police covered prior to 2000
  • Now in Metropolitan Police District.

• Extra-parochial areas in middle of towns
  • Dudley Castle was a particularly bizarre example, but also there is Chester Castle (parish), which was part of Chester Rural District and not Chester county borough, and also a Nottingham Rural District that included the Nottingham Shire Hall parish.
  • The LGA1972 and its SI also explicitly merge Devon County Buildings Area into Exeter and the Moot Hall and Precincts into Newcastle.
  • this isn't really a question

• Something happened between around c. 1600/the Civil War and the early 19th century. There seems to have been a general stagnation in civics. No new churches were built. No new boroughs were created, the Parliamentary election mechanics stayed the same. Administrative boundaries such as counties stayed the same for unusually long. What happened?

• Curry announced on December 4, 1996, as follows [1]:

I have today issued a direction to the Local Government Commission for England for it to carry out a review of local government arrangements in the metropolitan borough of Sefton. The commission should submit its final report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State by 25 November 1997. The direction requires the commission to have regard to policy and procedure guidance on the conduct of the review. My Department is also issuing, jointly with the commission, a statement setting out local government arrangements which we consider that the commission could recommend under the law, given the geographical scope of the direction.

Obviously, there was an election in between. The context of this is that the MP for Southport had been promised a review. Did this report ever get delivered?