Lancashire is a county of England, in the northwest of the country. The county did not exist in 1086, for the Domesday Book, and was apparently first created in 1182,[1] making it one of the youngest of the traditional counties.
The historic county consisted of two separate parts. The main part runs along the northwestern coast of England. When it included Manchester and Liverpool it had a greatest length of 76 miles, and breadth of 45 miles, and an area of 1,208,154 acres. The northern detached part of the old county palatine, consisting of Furness and Cartmell was 25 miles in length, 23 miles in breadth and was separated from the main portion of Lancashire by Morecambe Bay and the Kendal district of Westmorland.[2] The highest point in the historic county is 803 metres (2,633 ft) at the Old Man of Coniston.[3]
As a county palatine, the Duke of Lancaster had sovereignty rights in the areas of justice and administration within the county.[4] However the third man to hold the title, Henry Bolingbroke, seized the English throne in 1399 to become Henry IV and both the duchy and palatinate have since been possessions of the crown, administered separately but consistently with the rest of the country. The later part of the 19th century brought large reforms with the much of county's independent legal system merged into the national courts and a new administrative county and network of county boroughs being formed. Since then Lancashire County Council has been seated at County Hall in Preston.
Throughout these changes, historic Lancashire still continues to be recognised as a geographical and cultural area by the British Government.[5] The historic county palatine boundaries are also still recognised and unmoved with Lancaster still being recognised as the county town.[6][failed verification] Traditional borders are still followed by organisations such as the Lancashire FA.[7]
The High Sheriffs of Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are still appointed by the King in right of the duchy.[8] The duchy also benefits from the legal concept of bona vacantia within county palatine, whereby it has the right to property for which the legal owner cannot be found. The proceeds are divided between two registered charities, the Duchy of Lancaster Benevolent Fund and the Duchy of Lancaster Jubilee Trust.[9]
Lancashire takes its name from the city of Lancaster, whose name means 'Roman fort on the River Lune',[10] combining the name of the river with the Old Englishcæster, which derived from the Roman word for a fort or camp.[11] Official documents often called it the "County of Lancaster" rather than Lancashire; "Lancastershire" occurs in late 14th century, and Leland was still using it in 1540. "Lancashire" occurs in the Paston Letters in 1464.[12] Lancashire became the preferred designation, as a syncope of Lancastershire.
John Speed's map of the County Palatine of Lancaster, 1610Lancashire in 1832 (click to enlarge)
At the time when the Romans arrived in England, much of northern England was inhabited by the Brigantes, though the Cumbrian highland area was inhabited by the Carvetii, who were possibly a tribe within the larger Brigantes group. Another tribe named the Setantii has also been hypothesized based on the name of a Roman era port near the mouth of the River Wyre, called Portus Setantiorum, and they were possibly also Brigantes, if they existed.[13]
The land that would become the ancient county of Lancashire had been part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The River Mersey, and further east, its tributary the River Tame,[24] was considered the border with Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 923, Edward the Elder brought an army to Mercia and ordered the repair of the defences at Manchester in Northumbria.[25] It seems that from this time the area south of the Ribble became associated with Mercia.[26]
After the Norman conquest, William the Conqueror gave to Roger de Poitou, lands spanning eight ancient counties, which included the area between the River Ribble and the Mersey and Amounderness.[27] However, by the time of the Domesday survey, most of his lands are recorded to be under the king's control.[28] In the Domesday Book, some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The area in between the Rivers Mersey and Ribble (referred to in the Domesday Book as "Inter Ripam et Mersam") formed part of the returns for Cheshire.[29][30][28] Although some have taken this to mean that, at this time, south Lancashire was part of Cheshire,[30] it is not clear that this was the case, and more recent research indicates that the boundary between Cheshire and what was to become Lancashire remained the river Mersey.[31][32][33] South of the Ribble was surveyed as six hundreds: Blackburn, Derby, Leyland, Newton, Salford and Warrington. The entries are brief, and unusually intermix the Anglo-Saxonhide with the Danelawcarucate as units of measurement. The entries for the north, consist of little more than lists of manors. Amounderness appears as a district, apparently stretching inland to the River Hodder, the hundred is thought to have been created shortly afterwards.[34] Lonsdale was also not recorded as a hundred, the name only appears apparently as a manor attached to Cockerham.[35]
The town of Lancaster itself was at this time apparently administratively united (to the extent it could be administered) with Kendal, Furness and Cartmell, but not with the area south of the Ribble river. This contiguous area of relatively undeveloped highland was administered by men such as Ivo de Taillebois, and a local aristocracy which still included a relatively significant amount of Anglo-Saxons. This is proposed by authors such as William Farrer to be the reason why the first Barons of Kendal used the surname "de Lancaster" despite Kendal not becoming a permanent part of the later developed county of Lancaster.[36]
Early history
After Domesday, Roger's lands were returned to him and in the early 1090s Lonsdale, Cartmel and Furness were added to Roger's estates to facilitate the defence of the area south of Morecambe Bay from Scottish raiding parties, which travelled round the Cumberland coast and across the bay at low water, rather than through the mountainous regions of the Lake District. However, in 1102 he supported Robert Curthose in a failed rebellion against Henry I and his English holdings where forfeit. The Lonsdale Hundred was created sometime during the late 11th or early 12th centuries, certainly by 1168. Place-name evidence suggests that previous district included areas within the River Lune's watershed, not included in the new hundred.[35]
From 1164 until 1189 the honour of Lancaster was held by the crown and its accounts are recorded in the Pipe rolls.[37] It was usually included under Yorkshire or Northumberland, as when the first reference to a County of Lancaster occurs in 1168 in the accounts of the sheriff.[38] In 1182 Lancaster recorded as a separate shire,[39] with a note stating "because there was no place for it in Northumberland".[40]
The powers had been granted only for Henry's lifetime and after the duke's death in 1361 the palatinate (and title) ceased to exist. One of Henry's daughter's was married to John of Gaunt, the son of Edward III and the dukedom was recreated for him the next year. Before his death in 1377, the king also granted the palatine powers to his son. In 1390 John obtained an extension of this grant from Richard II, enabling his male heirs to inherit control of the palatinate. After John's death in 1399, his exiled son Henry of Bolingbroke returned to England, deposing Richard II and becoming king as Henry IV. Henry IV maintained the duchy separately from the other possessions of the crown and the palatinate's independent judicial system continued, although administered consistently with the rest of the country.[43]
Once its initial boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire. The county was divided into the six hundreds of Amounderness,[44]Blackburn,[45][46]Leyland,[47]Lonsdale,[35]Salford,[48][49] and West Derby.[50][51] Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, which was the detached part north of Morecambe Bay (also known as Furness), and Lonsdale South. Each hundred was sub-divided into parishes. As the parishes covered relatively large areas, they were further divided into townships that were more similar in size to parishes in counties in the south of England. Outside of the administration of the hundreds were the boroughs.
In 1461 Edward IV decreed that the county palatine should become part of the Duchy of Lancaster and from 1471 the offices of Chancellor of the Duchy and Chancellor of the Palatinate were held by the same person. The administrative centre moved to London, while Lancaster remained the legal centre.[43]
Lancashire was one of the homes of modern industrialisation. This started with small scale experiments, for example in the automation of weaving. Lancashire had a long history of supplying wool to skilled weavers in Europe and southern England, as well as having many cottager weavers itself by the 18th century. But the advent of increased imports of cotton needing processing was a trigger to innovation. John Kay, Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, and James Hargreaves were from Lancashire.[citation needed]
Around 1700, a blast furnace thought to be the first built in Lancashire, was constructed in the Cliviger gorge.[52]
Prior to the Municipal Corporations Act there were relatively few boroughs in the county. But following the act, 22 towns were incorporated up to 1862 as the county became more populous due to the continuing industrial revolution.
During the 20th century, the county became increasingly urbanised, particularly the southern part. To the existing county boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, St Helens and Wigan were added Blackpool (1904), Southport (1905), and Warrington (1900). The county boroughs also had many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Leesurban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire.[59]
By the census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the UK.[60] The administrative county was also the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. In 1972, under the Courts Act 1971, the remaining major element of legal system, the Court of Chancery of the County Palatine of Lancaster also merged with the High Court.[43]
In March 2005, under the Courts Act 2003, the power to appoint magistrates in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside transferred to the Ministry of Justice.[63]
Certainly there were links between Cheshire and south Lancashire before 1000, when Wulfric Spot held lands in both territories. Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners. Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.
The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river' is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.
^The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, section 16(9). (For a copy of this enactment, see William Downes Griffith and Richard Loveland Loveland, The Supreme Court of Judicature Acts, 1873, 1875, & 1877, 2nd Edition, Stevens and Haynes, Bell Yard, Temple Bar, London. 1877. p 12.)
^The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, sections 17(2) and 18(2). (For a copy of these enactments, see Griffith and Loveland, The Supreme Court of Judicature Acts, 1873, 1875, & 1877, 2nd Edition, Stevens and Haynes, Bell Yard, Temple Bar, London, 1877, pp 14 & 15.)
Crosby, A. (1996). A History of Cheshire. (The Darwen County History Series.) Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN0-85033-932-4.
Harris, B. E., and Thacker, A. T. (1987). The Victoria History of the County of Chester. (Volume 1: Physique, Prehistory, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Domesday). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-722761-9.
Morgan, P. (1978). Domesday Book Cheshire: Including Lancashire, Cumbria, and North Wales. Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN0-85033-140-4.
Phillips A. D. M., and Phillips, C. B. (2002), A New Historical Atlas of Cheshire. Chester, UK: Cheshire County Council and Cheshire Community Council Publications Trust. ISBN0-904532-46-1.
Samuel Tymms (1837). "Lancashire". Northern Circuit. The Family Topographer: Being a Compendious Account of the ... Counties of England. Vol. 6. London: J.B. Nichols and Son. OCLC2127940.
