Traditional counties of England

From Wikinfo

The traditional Counties (or historic Counties) of England are historic, cultural and geographical subdivisions of the country. In spite of the fact that they are no longer used for government administrative purposes, a majority of people continue to use them as a stable basis for geography (administrative areas changing very frequently).

They legally still exist, having never been abolished, although some people mistakenly believe them to have been abolished.

Most people prefer to use traditional counties for geographic purposes rather than administrative ones.

Supporters

Supporters of the historic Counties maintain that the counties are geographic and cultural entities too important to be changed every time there is a local government reorganisation.

More significantly, the legal argument is made that the legislation of 1888, which introduced new counties and altered some county borders, referred to these as "administrative counties" and specifically provided for the continuation of the traditional county boundaries. They point out that all subsequent legislation altered not the traditional counties, but the "administrative counties" created by the 1888 Act, even if subsequent Acts simply referred to them as "counties".

At the time of the massive local government reorganisation of 1974 the Government made the following statement:

"The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change, despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties"

Supporters of historic counties point out that there are many examples of towns and villages which have stated unequivocably their presence in their historic County.

Given frequent confusion regarding the status of historic counties, many societies and lobby groups have been formed in their defence. These include Yorkshire's White Rose Society, the Campaign for real Warwickshire, and the Huntingdonshire Society. The campaigns for Rutland, Peterborough and Herefordshire to be made once more administrative counties did succeed and these areas were made independent of Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire and Hereford and Worcester.

Critics

Critics claim that the 1974 disclaimer was merely a government statement, and thus had no legal effect. They believe that the Government deliberately lied when it clearly stated that traditional counties had not been abolished. The 1972 legislation doesn't use the term "administrative counties" used in the 1888 Act, except in order to define the borders of the new administrative divisions called "counties" (with reference to existing administrative counties and county boroughs). However, their argument falls down given that the traditional counties were previously refered to as Ancient or Greographical Counties after the 1888 act, in legislation and public census records until 1916. Since these "Ancient or Geographic Counties" have never subsequently been redefined, their existence is certain.

However, some critics also claim that the idea that historic counties are 'immutable' is said to be spurious. For example, there was a reorganisation in 1844, which they claim reverted some exclaves (such as a large part of County Durham within Northumberland) to their host territories - and if the 1888 legislation left the counties that existed in 1887 untouched, then they refer to the post-1844 versions. However, the wording of the 1844 act does not actually revert the areas in question - it merely says that they are to be "considered" to be part of a different county for administrative purposes - obviously no more than a simply tidying-up excercise, which had no effect on the exclaves' real status.

An important argument that critics put forward is that in many places administrative counties, not traditional counties, are the default geographic and cultural reference points of the local population. They point especially to the metropolitan counties such as West Midlands and Greater Manchester, where people have much more in common with each other than they do with those in the rump county. Certainly the majority of councils in such conurbations quote their address as being in the administrative county. For example Birmingham is nearly always referred to as being in the West Midlands, rather than Warwickshire. However, it is worth noting that large conurbations have always been geographical landmarks in themselves, and that even before 1974 or 1888 someone from a large city would have been likely to consider themselves from that large city, rather than the county in which it lies. Thus, this argument by critics does not really have any bearing on the issue of county-identification elsewhere, and has always been the case in the examples that they call upon.