Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844

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.

Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844
Long titleAn Act to annex detached Parts of Counties to the Counties in which they are situated.
Citation7 & 8 Vict. c. 61
Territorial extentEngland and Wales
Dates
Royal assent6 August 1844
Commencement20 October 1844
Other legislation
Repealed byLocal Government Act 1972
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Provisions

The areas involved had already been reorganised for some purposes. The Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 had abolished the outliers for parliamentary constituencies, whilst 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 Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 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.[1]

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 were the sole remaining examples.[2]

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 English Maelor area) east of Wrexham in Denbighshire and a single parish exclave (Marford & Hoseley) north of Wrexham.

Bedfordshire
Further information: Bedfordshire

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Berkshire
Further information: Berkshire

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Buckinghamshire
Further information: Buckinghamshire

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Cornwall
Further information: Cornwall

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Denbighshire
Further information: Denbighshire (historic)

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Derbyshire
Further information: Derbyshire

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Devon
Further information: Devon

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Dorset
Further information: Dorset

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County Durham
Further information: County Durham

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Gloucestershire
Further information: Gloucestershire

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Hampshire
Further information: Hampshire

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Herefordshire
Further information: Herefordshire

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Hertfordshire
Further information: Hertfordshire

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Huntingdonshire
Further information: Huntingdonshire

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Monmouthshire
Further information: Monmouthshire (historic)

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Montgomeryshire
Further information: Montgomeryshire

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Northamptonshire
Further information: Northamptonshire

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Northumberland
Further information: Northumberland

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Oxfordshire
Further information: Oxfordshire

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Shropshire
Further information: 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
Further information: Somerset

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Staffordshire
Further information: Staffordshire

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Sussex
Further information: Sussex

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Warwickshire
Further information: Warwickshire

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Wiltshire
Further information: Wiltshire

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Worcestershire
Further information: Worcestershire

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Yorkshire, North Riding
Further information: North Riding of Yorkshire

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Scotland and Ireland

The 1844 act applied only to England and Wales. Most detached parts of Irish counties were removed under an 1836 act in conjunction with Griffith's Valuation.[3] Detached parts of Scottish counties persisted (apart from some exchanged between Inverness and Elgin in 1870[4][5]) until the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, which merged the fragmented county of Cromartyshire into Ross and Cromarty and provided for Boundary Commissioners for Scotland to consolidate all other county exclaves, except one in Dunbartonshire comprising Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch parishes.[6][5]

References
  1. Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832, 2 & 3 Will. 4 c. 64; Section XXVI for general rule and Schedule M for list of the parts affected.
  2. 1901 Census of England and Wales, General Report: Administrative Counties and County Boroughs
  3. "cap. 84 : An Act to consolidate and amend the several Acts for the uniform Valuation of Lands and Tenements in Ireland; and to incorporate certain detached Portions of Counties and Baronies with those Counties and Baronies respectively whereto the same may adjoin or wherein the same are locally situate". The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 6 & 7 William IV. His Majesty's Statute and Law Printers. 1836. pp. 484–510. Retrieved 25 April 2017.; "County (Ireland)". The Statutory Rules and Orders Revised, being the Statutory Rules and Orders (Other Than Those of a Local, Personal Or Temporary Character) in force on December 31, 1903. Vol.2 (2nd ed.). H.M. Stationery Office. 1904. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  4. "c.16: Inverness and Elgin County Boundaries Act, 1870". The Public General Acts. 33 & 34 Vict. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1870. pp. 111–114.
  5. "GIS boundary datasets created by the project". Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 25 April 2017. boundary and attribute data for the counties of Scotland as given in the 1851 census ... represents the counties of Scotland as they were before the boundary changes caused by Inverness and Elgin County Boundaries Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 16) and the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 50) which eliminated the detached portions of counties.
  6. Hay, Shennan (1892). Boundaries of counties and parishes in Scotland as settled by the Boundary Commissioners under the Local government (Scotland) act, 1889. Edinburgh: William Green. pp. xvii–xviii.

Sources
  • Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844
  • Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832, Schedule M
  • Moule, Thomas (1836) Moule's English Counties in the 19th century, London: Simpkin & Marshall, republished (1990) as The County Maps of Old England by Thomas Moule, London: Studio Editions Ltd, ISBN 1-85170-403-5
  • Youngs, Frederic A. (1979) Guide to the local administrative units of England, Vol. 1: Southern England, Royal Historical Society, Guides and handbooks no. 10., London : University College, ISBN 0-901050-67-9
  • Youngs, Frederic A. (1991) Guide to the local administrative units of England, Vol. 2: Northern England, Royal Historical Society, Guides and handbooks no. 17., London : University College, ISBN 0-86193-127-0
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