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Ceremonial counties of England and shrieval counties of England
Northumberland Durham Lancashire Cheshire Derbs. Notts. Lincolnshire Leics. Staffs. Shropshire Warks. Northants. Norfolk Suffolk Essex Herts. Beds. Bucks. Oxon. Glos. Somerset Wiltshire Berkshire Kent Surrey Hampshire Dorset Devon Cornwall Heref. Worcs. Bristol East Riding of Yorkshire Rutland Cambs. Greater London Not shown: City of London Tyne & Wear Cumbria North Yorkshire South Yorks. West Yorkshire Greater Manc. Merseyside East Sussex West Sussex Isle of Wight West Midlands
Location	England
Number	48
Populations	8,000 (City of London) to 8,167,000 (Greater London)
Areas	3km² to 8,611 km²
Densities	62/km² to 4,806/km²

Ceremonial counties, formally known as counties for the purposes of the lieutenancies, are areas of England to which lord-lieutenants are appointed. They are one of the two main legal definitions of the counties of England in modern usage, the other being the counties for the purposes of local government legislation. A lord-lieutenant is the monarch's representative in an area. Shrieval counties have the same boundaries and serve a similar purpose, being the areas to which high sheriffs are appointed. High sheriffs are the monarch's judicial representative in an area.

The ceremonial counties are defined in the Lieutenancies Act 1997, and the shrieval counties in the Sheriffs Act 1887. Both are defined as groups of local government counties.

History

Ceremonial counties

The distinction between a county for purposes of the lieutenancy and a county for administrative purposes is not a new one. In some cases, a county corporate that was part of a county appointed its own lieutenant, although the lieutenant of the containing county would often be appointed to this position, as well, and the three Ridings of Yorkshire had been treated as three counties for lieutenancy purposes since the 17th century.

The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the administrative functions of quarter sessions in the counties. It created new entities called "administrative counties". An administrative county comprised all of the county apart from the county boroughs; also, some traditional subdivisions of counties were constituted administrative counties, for instance the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire and the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire.

The act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was made both an administrative county and a "county"; it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent, and Surrey. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts (and later urban districts and municipal boroughs) were not permitted to straddle county boundaries.

Apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided continued to exist as ceremonial counties. For example, the administrative counties of East Suffolk and West Suffolk, along with the county borough of Ipswich, were considered to make up a single ceremonial county of Suffolk, and the administrative county of the Isle of Wight was part of the ceremonial county of Hampshire.

The term "ceremonial county" in this context is an anachronism; at the time they were shown on Ordnance Survey maps as "counties" or "geographical counties", and were referred to in the Local Government Act 1888 simply as "counties".

Apart from minor boundary revisions (for example, Caversham, a town in Oxfordshire, becoming part of Reading county borough and thus of Berkshire, in 1911), these areas changed little until the 1965 creation of Greater London and of Huntingdon and Peterborough, which resulted in the abolition of the offices of Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, Lord Lieutenant of the County of London, and Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and the creation of the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London and of the Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdon and Peterborough.

In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, and a major reform was instituted. At this time, lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties directly.

Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, and Humberside were abolished. This led to a resurrection of a distinction between the local government counties and the ceremonial or geographical counties used for lieutenancy, and also to the adoption of the term "ceremonial counties", which although not used in statute, was used in the House of Commons before the arrangements coming into effect.

The County of Avon that had been formed in 1974 was mostly split between Gloucestershire and Somerset, but its city of Bristol regained the status of a county in itself, which it had lost upon the formation of Avon. Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the restored counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new ceremonial county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county. Many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities; this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county.

Most ceremonial counties are, therefore, entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974. The Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries.

Shrieval counties

The shrieval counties are defined by the Sheriffs Act 1887 as amended, in a similar way to the lieutenancies defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997. Each has a high sheriff appointed (except the City of London, which has two sheriffs).

Definition

The Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties (created by the Local Government Act 1972, as amended) as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly (which lie outside the 1972 Act's new system). Although the term is not used in the act, these counties are sometimes known as "ceremonial counties". The counties are defined in Schedule 1, paragraphs 2–5 as amended (most recently in 2009, 2019 and 2023) — these amendments have not altered the actual areas covered by the counties as set out in 1997, only their composition in terms of local government areas, as a result of structural changes in local government.

Lieutenancy areas since 1997

These are the 48 counties for the purposes of the lieutenancies in England, as currently defined:

Geographical counties 1889–1974

After the creation of county councils in 1889, there were counties for judicial and shrieval purposes, counties for lieutenancy purposes, and administrative counties and county boroughs for the purposes of local government. The 1888 Act used the term 'entire county' to refer to the group of administrative counties and county boroughs created within each judicial county. The Ordnance Survey used the term 'geographical county' to refer to this wider definition of the county.

Yorkshire had three lieutenancies, one for each riding, but was a single judicial county with one sheriff, and was counted as one geographical county by Ordnance Survey.

The counties lost their judicial functions in 1972 under the Courts Act 1971 which abolished the quarter sessions and assizes. Sheriffs continued to be appointed for each county despite the loss of the judicial functions. Certain towns and cities were counties corporate appointing their own sheriffs. The counties corporate were all included in a wider county for lieutenancy purposes, except the City of London which had its own lieutenants.

The geographical counties were relatively stable between 1889 and 1965. There were occasional boundary changes, notably following the Local Government Act 1894 which said that parishes and districts were no longer allowed to straddle county boundaries. After that most boundary changes were primarily to accommodate urban areas which were growing across county boundaries.

The lieutenancies and judicial / shrieval counties were defined as groups of administrative counties and county boroughs, and so were automatically adjusted if the boundaries of those administrative areas changed. There were two exceptions to this rule (one only briefly). The county borough of Great Yarmouth straddled Norfolk and Suffolk for judicial and lieutenancy purposes until 1891 when it was placed entirely in Norfolk for those purposes. The county borough of Stockport straddled Cheshire and Lancashire for judicial and lieutenancy purposes - it was placed entirely in Lancashire for judicial purposes in 1956 but continued to straddle the two counties for lieutenancy purposes until 1974.

Georgaphical, shrieval, lieutenancy and administrative counties 1889–1965

See also

• Counties of England
• Historic counties of England
• Counties in England by population
• Lieutenancy areas of Scotland
• List of local governments in the United Kingdom
• Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics
• Preserved counties of Wales

Notes

1. For example, Cheshire was prior to the 2009 structural changes to local government defined as the non-metropolitan counties of Cheshire, Halton & Warrington; the non-metropolitan county of Cheshire on 1 April that year split into the non-metropolitan counties of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, and Schedule 1 of the Lieutenancies Act 1997 was duly amended to take into account these changes to local government within the ceremonial county.

1. Because the City of London has a Commission of Lieutenancy rather than a single lord-lieutenant, it is treated as a county for some purposes of the Lieutenancy Act. (Schedule 1 paragraph 4)
2. ^ As the district of Stockton-on-Tees is in two counties, the population has been calculated by adding (for North Yorkshire) or subtracting (for County Durham) its relevant civil parishes.
3. The Third Schedule of the 1888 Act lists the county boroughs with the "Name of the County in which, for the purposes of this Act, the Borough is deemed to be situate." Four county boroughs were then listed as deemed to be in more than one county: Bristol, Great Yarmouth, Stockport and York. However, the purposes of the act did not include changing which counties, ridings and counties corporate were included in each lieutenancy area; those were already set by the Militia Act 1882 and were not altered by the 1888 Act, except that if the boundaries of an administrative county changed then so too did any lieutenancy, shrieval or judicial area to match (section 59). For lieutenancy purposes, Bristol was solely in Gloucestershire, and York was solely in the West Riding. As both were counties corporate they had their own sheriffs and served as their own judicial areas. The purposes of the 1888 Act which necessitated county boroughs to be deemed to be situated in a wider county related to certain financial matters rather than lieutenancy.
4. Shared with Huntingdonshire
5. ^ For judicial and lieutenancy purposes, Stockport south of the River Mersey and River Tame was in Cheshire, north of the rivers in Lancashire. In 1956 the whole borough was placed in Lancashire for judicial purposes whilst continuing to straddle the two counties for the purposes of lieutenancy.
6. Sui generis authority created 1890.
7. Shared with Cambridgeshire
8. ^ The county borough of Great Yarmouth straddled Norfolk and Suffolk for judicial and lieutenancy purposes, with the part north of the River Yare in Norfolk and south of it in Suffolk, until 1891 when the whole borough was placed in Norfolk for those purposes.
9. Oxford was briefly included in the administrative county of Oxfordshire created in April 1889, but was made a county borough in November 1889.

References

1. Table 2 2011 Census: Usual resident population and population density, local authorities in the United Kingdom UK Census 2011 UK usual resident population Greater London excluding City of London
2. "Ceremonial Counties" (PDF). Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
3. ^ Text of the Lieutenancies Act 1997 – Schedule 1: Counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies in Great Britain as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 2011-05-03.
4. "Document (01) The Lord-Lieutenant". council.lancashire.gov.uk. 29 November 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
5. "High Sheriff of Lancashire". www.highsheriffoflancashire.co.uk. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
6. House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 29 Feb 1996 (pt 8) Archived 3 March 2006 at the Wayback Machine
7. Text of the Lord-Lieutenants – The Local Government Changes for England (Lord-Lieutenants and Sheriffs) Order 1997 as originally enacted or made within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 2011-05-03.
8. Text of The Local Government (Structural Changes) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Other Provision) Order 2009 (SI 2009/837) as originally enacted or made within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 2011-05-03.
9. ^ "The Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Supplementary Provision and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2019".
10. ^ The Cumbria (Structural Changes) Order 2022
11. "Mid-Year Population Estimates, UK, June 2022". Office for National Statistics. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
12. Section 100
13. Harley, John Brian (1975). Ordnance Survey Maps: A descriptive manual. Ordnance Survey. p. 82. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
14. "1:10,000 map SE82SE, 1971". National Library of Scotland. Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 24 March 2024. Note the distinction in the key and on the map between the boundaries of geographical counties and the administrative counties.
15. "Courts Act 1971", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 1971 c. 23, retrieved 18 March 2024
16. "Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 13) Act 1890" (PDF). legislation.gov.uk. The National Archives. p. 13. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
17. Criminal Justice Administration Act 1956. 30 October 2023. p. 168. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
18. Militia Act. 1882. p. 21. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
19. MacMorran, Alexander; Colquhoun Dill, T. R. (1898). The Local Government Act 1888 etc. with Notes and Index. London: Shaw and Sons. p. 68. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
20. Reports from Commissioners, Inspectors and Others. Local Government Commission. 1892. p. 164. Retrieved 24 March 2024.

External links

• Text of the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

v t e Subdivisions of England
Region	Regions ITL 1 statistical regions of England
County	Ceremonial county Metropolitan county Non-metropolitan county Greater London
District and civil parish	Civil parish Metropolitan borough Non-metropolitan district London borough Unitary authority sui generis City of London Isles of Scilly

• Ceremonial counties of England
• England-related lists
• Counties of England