Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844

The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844

Long title An Act to annex detached Parts of Counties to the Counties in which they are situated.
Citation 7 & 8 Vict. c. 61
Territorial extent England and Wales
Dates
Royal assent 6 August 1844
Commencement 20 October 1844
Other legislation
Repealed by Local Government Act 1972
Status: Repealed

The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 61), which came into effect on 20 October 1844, was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which eliminated many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes.

The areas involved had already been reorganised for some purposes: The Reform Act 1832 had abolished the outliers for parliamentary constituencies, the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1839 allowed Justices of the Peace to act for exclaves surrounded by their county, and constabularies established under the County Police Act 1839 had jurisdiction over detached parts of other counties.

Section 1 of the Act read in part as follows:

[F]rom and after the Twentieth Day of October next every Part of any County in England or Wales which is detached from the main Body of such County shall be considered for all Purposes as forming Part of that County of which it is considered a Part for the Purposes of the Election of Members to serve in Parliament as Knights of the Shire [...]

The Act went on to state (s. 2) that the parts transferred would be incorporated in an existing "Hundred, Wapentake, Ward, Rape, Lathe, or other like Division by which it is wholly or for the most Part surrounded, or to which it is next adjoining, in the County to which it will thenceforth belong, unless the Justices of the County, [...] shall declare it to be a new or separate Hundred or other like Division [...]."

The Act itself did not list the areas transferred; these had already been detailed in the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4 c. 64).

The Act transferred the detached parts to different counties but not to different parishes. Unless the detached part was an entire parish, this resulted in many cases of a detached part in one county belonging to a parish in a different county. Later legislation, including the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1882, eliminated most instances of civil parishes belonging to two (or more) counties, and by 1901 Stanground in Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely was the sole remaining example.[1]

Areas transferred

The Act affected twenty-seven counties. The largest changes were to County Durham, which lost large areas to Northumberland, as well as a single parish to Yorkshire. By no means all detached areas were changed: seven counties still had exclaves. Many of these outlying parts changed their administration in the 1890s following the passing of the Local Government Act 1894. Large detached blocks of Warwickshire and Worcestershire interspersed with Gloucestershire remained until 1931, while Flintshire retained two exclaves until 1974 — a large one (the Maelor Saesneg area) east of Wrexham in Denbighshire and a single parish exclave (Marford & Hoseley) north of Wrexham.

Bedfordshire

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Berkshire

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Buckinghamshire

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Cornwall

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Denbighshire

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Derbyshire

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Devon

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Dorset

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County Durham

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Gloucestershire

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Hampshire

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Herefordshire

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Hertfordshire

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Huntingdonshire

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Monmouthshire

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Montgomeryshire

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Northamptonshire

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Northumberland

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Oxfordshire

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Shropshire

Dudley, shown on an 1814 map as being an exclave of Worcestershire locally situated in Staffordshire. Note also the exclave of Shropshire at Halesowen, abolished by this Act.

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Somerset

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Staffordshire

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Sussex

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Warwickshire

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Wiltshire

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Worcestershire

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Yorkshire, North Riding

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References

  1. ↑ 1901 Census of England and Wales, General Report: Administrative Counties and County Boroughs

Sources

External links

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