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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