Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis.

  • Great Britain. Census Office.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PETTY SESSIONAL DIVISIONS; MUNICIPALITIES. IT hundreds to which they have been added, and have thenceforward been deemed as much part of the hundred as any of the other parishes which may have been named as belonging to it in the Domesday Survey. It seems clear, however, that while the justices have fall power to divide the counties in any manner which they may think expedient for the convenience of holding sessions, they possess no authority to alter the ancient hundreds. That in practice a different view is taken in some counties is sufficiently obvious from the returns of the Clerks of the Peace. A Parliamentary Return (No. 44J, Session of 1870) gives the names of the parishes or places composing the several Petty Sessional Divisions throughout the country. The Census Returns show that in 1871 there were 700 Petty Sessional Divisions, and 193 boroughs with Petty Sessions ; 97 of the latter having separate Quarter Sessions also. The population of the Petty Sessional Divisions in each county is given in this Digest (pp. 155 et seq.). For police Purposes there are 622 divisions, including 167 boroughs with police not under County control. Municipal Cities and Boroughs.—The Saxon borough was a modification of the hundred; the burgesses were freemen bound to each other as neighbours, responsible for each other to surrounding com- munities, sharing common burthens; classified further in Guilds of Trades, or Companies, which sprang up with the divisions of labour; and banded firmly together for the defence of their walls, and dwellings. “ It must be clearly understood,” observes one of the ablest of our constitutional Historians, “ that a Saxon Burgh was nothing more than a Hundred, or an assemblage of Hundreds, surrounded by a moat, a stockade, or a wall; and the name of the hundred was actually given to some of the most considerable cities, burghs, and towns of England, [as Norwich, Thetford, Chelmsford, Maldon, Colchester, Winchelsea, Canterbury, Faver- sham, Fordwich, Exeter, several of them on Roman foundations]. No right was conferred or destroyed by the feeble fortification which protected the burgesses ; and the jurisdiction of the burgh-moot, or port- moot, differed from that possessed by the analogous districts in the open country, only in consequence of the police required by a more condensed population, and the institutions, perhaps of a Roman origin, which incorporated the trading portions of the community [Guilds, Companies] : all of which were extraneous to the primitive territorial jurisdiction of the burgh, and in no respect affecting its con- stitutional existence or nature.” The hundred necessarily underwent some modification in the towns ; and in this as in other cases it soon ceased to designate a specific number of men. But it is of importance to observe that in the early times the same principles of subdivision, organization, and government, were applied alike to town and country populations. London, Winchester, Abingdon, and some other boroughs of importance are not entered in Domesday, and were probably not surveyed by the Commissioners of William I. The eleven cities of London, Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Norwich, Worcester, York; and the six towns of Kingston-on-Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Berwick-upon- Tweed, Nottingham, Poole, Southampton, in England; and two, Carmarthen and Haverfordwest, in, Wales, are “ Counties of themselves;” as was also the city of Coventry until 1842. The cities on the old Roman sites maintained their independence of the country around them, as well as of the early Saxon kingdoms, to a larger extent than other towns; as is indicated by their independent county jurisdiction. Some of the ancient boroughs fell into decay ; new boroughs sprang up in other parts of the country ; many towns were created boroughs for purposes not now very intelligible; and with the rapid progress of population which commenced after 1750 the houses have spread beyond the limits of the old boroughs and cities. In 1835 a great change was made in their constitution, and the limits of many were enlarged by the adoption of the new boundaries settled for purposes of Parliamentary elections, after an inquiry by Commissioners into the circumstances of each place. The Commissioners appointed to inquire into Municipal Corporations experienced, at the outset of their labours, some difficulty in ascertaining the number of corporate bodies in England and Wales. Acting upon the best information that they were able to collect, they visited and instituted inquiries in 285 places. Of these, 16 contained Corporations which proved to be of a character exclusively manorial, 178 were subsequently placed under the operation of the Municipal Corporation Act (5 & 6 Will, iv! c. <6), and two of the number (Hartlepool and Ashton-under-Lyne) were, at a more recent period, brought under the provisions of that statute on new charters being granted to them ; the remaining 89 were ulti- mately left undisturbed by the legislative enactment. During the period which has elapsed since the investigation was made into the condition of the municipal boroughs, some of the unreformed Corporations have ceased to exercise any active functions, avmg become, in fact, either extinct or dormant, while others, although still claiming to be Corporations, are municipal only in name. By Section 14L of the Municipal Corporation Act, charters of incorporation may be granted to towns, on e petition of the inhabitant householders, if Her Majesty, by the advice of the Privy Council, shall o
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