If only the Victorians had used a little more commonsense and made the
Poor Law Union and Registration County the basis of a new rational and
logical form of local government life today would be so much easier but
not as much fun!
David
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter King [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 September 2004 10:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: County Boundaries
Alveley was in Staffordshire in Domesday Book. Halesowen was in
Worcestershire, but both were subsequently in Shropshire. That change
was probably the result of their belonging to Roger de Montgomery, and
being drawn by him into this Palatinate of Shropshire (which reverted to
the crown on the attainder of his son shortly after 1100.
Halesowen was transferred back to Worcestershire in the 1840s in the
first effort to sort out the tangled county boundaries left by our
ancestors. Clent and Broome (formerly Staffordshire) were transferred to
Worcestershire at the same time. The tangled boundaries between
Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Oxfordshire appear to
me to result from the churches (abbeys or priories) of Worcester,
Evesham, and Deerhurst having private hundreds that were exempt from
secular dues by grants of various Saxon kings. When the Mercian shires
were formed in about 1000 AD, these hundreds were placed entirely in
either Worcestershire or Gloucestershire. I have argued in Transactions
of Worcestershire Archaeological Society 3rd ser. 16 (1996), 73-91 that
the transfer of Clent, Kingswinford and Tardebigge to Staffordshire was
the result of a refusal of a sheriff of Worcester to seize these from
Aethelsige Dean of Worcester. Tardebigge was later transferred to
Warwickshire.
I suspect that the reference to Alveley being in Staffordshire is a mere
mistake; it is close enough to the County boundary for someone to have
made an error. Some one's reference to it in relation to the Ordnance
Survey's boundary branch probably relates to a survey of the boundary
between Kinver, Enville, and Bobbington (in Staffordshire) and Alveley
(in Shropshire).
The problem of divided parishes is a slightly different one. In some
cases it resulted from the parish having been constituted before the
county, and then having been divided into manors; some manors were
placed in one hundred and others in another; on the formation of
counties, the hundreds were placed in different counties. This is
sometimes related to the issue of exempt hundreds or Norman overlordship
(as described above). However the issue is a complicated one.
I think Inclosure Acts and Awards are a red herring in this context. In
some cases the Act may have authorised the Commissioners to determine
the boundary. In other cases a particularly fragmented boundary may be
an unintended result of the award. The land allotted was held under the
same title as the land (or rather common rights) in respect of which it
was allotted. That meant that it paid rates in the parish of the
dominant (i.e.
parent) farm. That placed it in that parish. If the Commissioners did
not make allotments for all farms in the same parish together, the
result would be a mass of detached oddments.
Peter King
-----Original Message-----
From: From: Local-History list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On
Behalf Of Frank Sharman
Sent: 14 September 2004 18:10
To: Peter Wickham King
Subject: County Boundaries
Does anyone know if any county boundaries changed in the early 19th
century?
I get the impression that county boundaries never changed. Parish
boundaries did and you could end up with a parish split between two
counties.
I cannot think of any mechanism for changing county boundaries other
than by statute. (The use of the royal prerogative would, surely, have
been unacceptable by the 19th century). I can think of enclosure Acts
which changed parish boundaries but I have never heard of one changing
county boundaries. And I can find no general legislation doing it. In
any event, I strongly suspect that in the early 19th century the county
was not sufficiently important for anyone to worry about their
boundaries. I would guess that the first time anyone did anything was
when county councils were set up in 1888.
Nevertheless Ivor Noel Hume tells me, in a current email correspondence,
that the 1851 census refers to Alveley in Staffordshire, when everyone
knows it is, and always has been, in Shropshire. Is it likely that the
local inhabitants, and the census taker, were mistaken about what county
they were in? Or did the boundaries in fact change?
All advice and suggestions would be happily received. (The reason we
want to know about this is that Noel is trying to get details of a large
jug, made by a previously unknown maker in Bradley, near Bilston, and
inscribed to another John Bacon, who appears to live in Alveley. Trying
to track down this man when it is unclear where Alveley is, is proving
tricky).
With thanks and best wishes to all,
Frank Sharman
Wolverhampton
01902 763246
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