Talk:Historic counties of England

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Former featured article Historic counties of England is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article Milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
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This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 29, 2004.
To-do list for Historic counties of England: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • General copyedit, structure
  • Introduction shortened to succinct summary
  • List/table showing which went on to become administrative and non-metropolitan counties and which did not (and how the ancient subdivisions were used as the basis for some admin counties)
  • Expanded references
  • Section detailing role of the ancient counties - still needs work
  • The role of major subdivisions needs to be explained
  • Regain FA status
  • Fix old links from redirect page in this list

Contents

[edit] Archived talk

[edit] How long did the historic counties last?

Hi,

I am reading this article with no prior knowledge of the topic and I find it confusing. Would it be possible to add a summary in the lead paragraph of how long the counties lasted? "Several hundred years" doesn't really tell us anything. Is there some date when the historic counties were finally abolished? That could be used as an end date.--Gheuf 21:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The "historic", "real" or "traditional" counties were never abolished, only HM the Queen can do that by Royal Decree (which Her Majesty has never done). Paliament has even stated that "it cannot abolish, what it did not create". What happened in 1974 was the abolishment of many county councils, which are quite separate entities from the actual counties. The changes were meant to be for better administration only and weren't meant to replace local sense of identities. However maps were changed (mostly due to the fact that up-to-date maps of the UK had to show administrative units by law), the Post office adopted many of these "new" counties and Emergency services were renamed after many of the new administrative units. Its not surprising is it then, that since then a whole generation have grown up not always knowing their true birthright. For instance many people would look at you as if you were stupid if you said the great cities of Liverpool and Manchester were in Lancashire! Not that it matters as I believe the artificial EU "English Regions" will one day replace our counties. Shame.

The previous unsigned comment appears to have been entered from IP address 84.69.61.172 at 19:00, February 7, 2007.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. It seems to raise the question, "What does it mean for a county to exist?" This is a philosophical question interesting perhaps in itself but distinct from the one I would like answered. The article says "the counties were used for administrative purposes for several hundred years": when did this start and stop? This is separate from the cultural question, whether people "feel" part of their traditional county, and also from the philosophical question, whether a countys' ghostly existence has been, or can ever be, terminated.--Gheuf 21:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
It's hard (impossible?) to establish the start date for administrative uses: as the article says "late middle ages" is a good comprise. It might be said to start whenever high sheriffs were first appointed which is I think pre-Norman, however the number and boundaries of counties kept evolving for centuries after that.
There are a number of possible "end points": 1844 when the boundaries were regularised, 1889 from which date counties were altered to follow the areas of county councils and county boroughs, or 1974 when there was a complete recasting. You could also go with 1918 when the parliamentary counties were realigned to the local government boundaries. This was the last use of them for anything governmental, I believe, and the census stopped compiling figures after that. I'd go with 1889, but that's just my POV. Lozleader 23:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
If there is no start date, and there is no end date, then on what basis do we contrast "historic" with "modern" counties? Why don't we just say that county boundaries have changed over time?--Gheuf 21:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Winchcombeshire

Seeing as we have a mention of Hexhamshire, shouldn't we include Winchcombeshire: not sure whether to put it under Midlands or Southern England (it had something to do with Mercia, not Wessex). Lozleader 10:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cornwall

Although Cornwall is not normally reckoned to be a County Palatine, the Duchy of Cornwall has always enjoyed all the rights and priviledges of being such. Is there a neat way to indicate this on the list or is this something for a short paragraph underneath? AulaTPN 08:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

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