User:Lozleader/county divisions

Counties at large
The term "county at large" was used to denote the entirety of a geographical county including any areas that had some level of immunity from the officers of the county or measure of independence. Except in the case of the City of London, which possessed its own commission of lieutenancy, and the three ridings of Yorkshire, the counties at large were the areas to which lord lieutenants were appointed.

Divided counties


A number of counties were divided into separate jurisdictions, with each division having its own administrative machinery and officers, and effectively forming a distinct county, although continuing to collectively form a "county at large".

Of these, the most significant were the divisions of Yorkshire: the East Riding, West Riding, North Riding and (until 1836) the Ainsty of York. The ridings were for almost all practical purposes separate counties, having their lord lieutenants, magistracy and county towns. The only office uniting the county was that of high sheriff.

The second largest county, Lincolnshire, was divided into three historic "parts": Lindsey, Holland and Kesteven. Other divisions include those of Sussex into East Sussex and West Sussex and Suffolk into East Suffolk and West Suffolk, and, more informally and hence more vaguely, of Kent into East Kent and West Kent.

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 under the control of county councils.

Subdivisions
Most English counties were subdivided into smaller subdivisions called hundreds. Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were divided into wapentakes (a unit of Danish origin), while Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland were divided into wards, areas originally organised for military purposes, each 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 were divided into tithings and parishes (the only class of these divisions still used administratively), which in turn were divided into townships and manors. In the 17th century the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex was further divided into four divisions, 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.

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This is a list of county divisions in England prior to the coming into effect of the Local Government Act 1888.

Listed are those areas which enjoyed some freedom from the jurisdiction from the officers of the counties at large. These included: p.22-24 Cinque Ports and Ancient Towns
 * Counties corporate, incorporated boroughs that had the right to appoint their own sheriffs
 * Liberties: areas where a high ecclesistic or lay lord of the manor exercised considerable powers and enjoyed considerable freedom from county administration.
 * Divisions: areas with their own commissions of the peace and courts of quarter sessions.
 * Stannary districts: tin-mining areas of Devon and Cornwall, where the Lord Warden of the Stannaries enjoyed some of the powers of a lord lieutenant.
 * The Cinque Ports, a number of coastal towns with special privileges exempt from the magistracy of the counties in which they lay.

Amongthe most ancient subdivisions or jurisdictions ofthe Country are the Cinque Ports, which, by reason of the peculiar privileges they originally possessed and still in some measure retain, and of the interest attaching to them as the birthplace and cradle in olden time of the British Navy, must necessarily have a place in this conspectus. The following account of these Ports is extracted from Volume I. of the Census Returns for 1871, and is the result of a most careful collation of authorities both ancient and modern.

The Cinque Ports have existed as an Incorporation from a very early period of English history. The oldest charter now on record is one granted in the 6th year of Edward I, being 99 years older than the first charter of the City of London: and this refers to their privileges in the time of Edward the Confessor and William I, granted by charters which the charter of Edward I states that the King had seen. It is stated in Jeake's 'Charters of the Cinque Ports,' a book considered to be of good authority, that in one of the records of the Town of Rye there is  a memorandum, that "the Five Ports were enfranchised in the time of King Edward the Confessor." The Five Ports are Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich. To these were added, in very early times, the so-called Ancient Towns of Winchelsea and Rye, to which all the privileges of Cinque Ports were given. Each of the Ports of Hastings, Romney, Dover, and Sandwich, and also the Town of ERye, has one or more Members : some of the Members are Corporate Towns, others are not. The only charter in which the Ports and their Members are enumerated is that of Charles II, which was the last charter granted to the Cinque Ports. In it the Corporate Towns are distinguished from those which have no corporation, by the latter being designated as "towns or places." Deal is mentioned in the charter as an unincorporated town : it was incorporated however by William III,  and has thereafter been classed among the Corporate Members. Margate was incorporated in 1857.

Until the time of Henry VII the Crown appears to have had no permanent Navy. The Cinque Ports had always furnished nearly the whole of the shipping required for the purposes of the State; and their assistance to the King's ships contiiwed' long after that time. When ships were wanted, the King issued his summons to the Ports to provide their quota. In the time of Edward I they had to provide 67 ships fully equipped, at their own cost: the period of service, however,S was limited to 15 days. The summonses issued by the Kings generally apportioned the ships among the Ports and Members. Some of the Members had to provide one ship:    in  some oases  two Members had  to provide  one  ship between them. In consideration for these services, many very valuable privileges and franchises,* specified in the various charters, were granted to the Ports by different Kings.

The jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports extends along the coast continuously, from Seaford in Sussex, to Birchington near Margate, including also Faversham in the Swale. Several of the Corporate Members are now inland : some of these may originally have been on the coast and been left by the sea others; as, for instance, Fordwich, are situate on the banks of rivers which in former times were navigable. The town of Tenterden has no river near it, but at the time of its annexation to Rye, the sea flowed up to the parish at Small Hythe, where at that time, and long after, it was navigable for the vessels of those days. Many of the unincorporated Members are not only inland and detached from their respective Ports, but are situate at great distances therefrom. Thus, the Parish of Beaksbourne, situate on the Little Stour, near Canterbury, is a Member of Hastings, from which it is distant about forty-eight miles the Ville of Grange, or Grenche, near Rochester, is a member of the same Port, and distant from it about thirty miles;  and the large and increasing Town of Margate is about twenty-one miles distant from Dover, of which it was, until recent years, an unincorporated Member.

In very early times all the Members were probably in some measure dependent upon, or subject to, their respective Ports. At present there is no connection between any Port and such of its Members as have been incorporated, beyond that which exists amongst all the Ports. Each incorporated Member has within its Liberty the same jurisdiction and municipal functions as the Parent Port, and the latter has no power or right of interference.The Members, however, which have not been incorporated are under the municipal jurisdiction of their respective Ports; they are within the jurisdiction of the Criminal Courts and of the Magistrates and Coroners of those Ports, and they are summoned on the juries and contribute to the rates, in the nature of County rates, imposed by the Municipal bodies of those Ports, and sanctioned by the Court of Quarter Sessions. None of the rights of citizenship, however, can be acquired in the Members; they have no share in the election of any of the officers of their respective Ports, nor is residence within them considered as residence within the Port for any corporate purpose. The connection between the Towns and Ports of New Romney, Fordwich, and Winchelsea, and their respective Liberties, is of the same description as that between Parent Ports and their non-corporate Members.

p.25

The Act 51 Geo. III. c. 36 has made some alterations as to the administration of justice in the unincorporated Members. This Act, after reciting that many inconveniences had arisen from the non-residence of Justices in or near several of the Members, empowers the King to appoint Justices of the Peace within the Liberties of the Cinque Ports. The jurisdiction of these Justices, however, is not to extend to the granting of publicans' licences or to the exerciseof any authority within the Five Ports or any of the incorporated Towns. Jurisdiction is given to the Justices and Coroners of Essex within Brightlingsea, and to the Justices and Coroners of Kent within Beaksbourne and Grange, from, which the granting of licenses is not excepted.

The Lord Warden appoints the Justices in the Commission of the Peace for the Liberties of the Cinque Ports in the same manner as the Custos Kotulorum of a County. Jurats having been replaced by Aldermen and Councillors in the local government of the Ports and Boroughs affected by the Municipal Corporations Eeform Act, such Aldermen and Councillors accordingly claim to sit in the several Courts of the Cinque Ports.

Liberty of St Peter
The liberty was under the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of York Minster. Its area consisted of a large number of parcels of land scattered throughout the three ridings, the Ainsty and the City and county of York. In the late eighteenth century it comprised nine places within the city and The Ainsty, 62 in the East Riding, 40 in the West Riding and 51 in the North Riding. The liberty had a completely separate county administration consisting of a steward, bailiffs, magistrates, coroners and constables. The quarter sessions for the liberty were held at the Minster Yard in York in a building known as the "Hall of Pleas". The liberty's gaol, the "Peter Prison" was also housed here.

The jurisdiction ended on 5 June 1838, when the Dean and Chapter declined to apply for the renewal of the commission on the accession of Queen Victoria.