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The Counties that Never Were

A

Alex Richards

Domesday Clock update: 1.5 Williams till Midknight
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Britain's had a lot of attempts at varied administrative reform, and a lot of entities which didn't quite make it to the present (looking at you Hexhamshire), so here's a place for discussing administrative counties that could have been, but weren't, boundaries that could have been different, or the historical counties that were only created by chance.

I think one of the more interesting in the vein of 'no 1972 reform' is a surviving Huntingdonshire and Peterborough. You've got this really bizarre conjoined pattern of a major urban area at the edge of a mostly rural county. Probably ends up as a pair of Unitary Authorities by the 90s if the Cambridgeshire merge doesn't happen.
 
One perhaps for yourself Alex, but wasn't there an attempt at some point to bring Derby, Nottingham, et al. under a single metropolitan county?
 
RyanF said:
One perhaps for yourself Alex, but wasn't there an attempt at some point to bring Derby, Nottingham, et al. under a single metropolitan county?
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Ah yes, the East Midlands Metropolitan County. IIRC that was either one of Derek Senior's suggestions or one of the other alternatives to Redcliffe-Maud.

Of course Ilkeston were in favour, mainly as it offered the prospect of the 'Metropolitan Borough of Erewash' that would probably have had Ilkeston as the logical central location for the headquarters.
 
Alex Richards said:
Ah yes, the East Midlands Metropolitan County. IIRC that was either one of Derek Senior's suggestions or one of the other alternatives to Redcliffe-Maud.

Of course Ilkeston were in favour, mainly as it offered the prospect of the 'Metropolitan Borough of Erewash' that would probably have had Ilkeston as the logical central location for the headquarters.
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From what I remember from @Ares96's wonderful maps of Radcliffe-Maud, Seniors memorandum of discontent, and the ATL implementation, Senior called it the Nottingham Region extended to High Peak in the north. Radcliffe-Maud itself is wonderful as a blueprint for ATL administrative reform, and the possible butterflies that can come from it. I know Wheatley made very different recommendations for Scotland but I'd love to see a Radcliffe-Maud-ised local authority proposal for north of the border.
 
A surviving Avon county might be the nucleus of a more meaningful Greater Bristol region in to the present day. Rival identities with Bath would prevent anything truely unitary though. Bland name too, though with reference to the previous point, that was probably unavoidable.

It of course lives on in address databases, as do many of these defunct modern counties.

Maybe, in an ATL where Bristol is more prominant, you could have a more extensive Avon that takes in yet more of South Gloucestershire, and even the far bank of the Severn; for a county even more ambiguously English-Welsh than Monmouthshire? Then call it Transabrina to make it utterly unlikely to ever be picked up by people who actually live there*

*Until after abolition, naturally.
 
Agent Boot said:
Maybe, in an ATL where Bristol is more prominant, you could have a more extensive Avon that takes in yet more of South Gloucestershire, and even the far bank of the Severn; for a county even more ambiguously English-Welsh than Monmouthshire? Then call it Transabrina to make it utterly unlikely to ever be picked up by people who actually live there*
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My gut instinct is that the Severn is too strong a geographical border there unless you've literally got a city the size of London there.
 
Alex Richards said:
My gut instinct is that the Severn is too strong a geographical border there unless you've literally got a city the size of London there.
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Depends how far up the Severn this alt-Bristol extends - but as you say, that's getting into Greater London-tier city areas.

I was thinking more of the modern era, with say a '30s Severn crossing and barrage project tying the region together economically. Comined perhaps with some land-reclaimation (although a) what would be the point, with minimal landward limits to expansion, and b) that tidal range/storm surge risk factor.).Any "Severn-side" administrative unit would probably be hated by those with residual identities too.


Any love for a surviving West Midlands County Council, with its pioneering monorail network?
 
RyanF said:
From what I remember from @Ares96's wonderful maps of Radcliffe-Maud, Seniors memorandum of discontent, and the ATL implementation, Senior called it the Nottingham Region extended to High Peak in the north. Radcliffe-Maud itself is wonderful as a blueprint for ATL administrative reform, and the possible butterflies that can come from it. I know Wheatley made very different recommendations for Scotland but I'd love to see a Radcliffe-Maud-ised local authority proposal for north of the border.
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Senior didn't actually recommend names - he wanted the people of each region and district to choose the name for themselves. The report uses the name of the principal city in each region and district, but as I've never had my hands on a copy, it's likely I got it wrong for at least one or two districts.
 
The Solent region has always been hotly disputed. Although traditionally part of Hampshire (or as it was known until 1959, Southamptonshire), due to economic, social, political, and even geographic differences between the north and south, there has always been a hanging threat of South Hampshire- this being Southampton, Eastleigh Fareham, Gosport, Portsmouth, and Havant (and sometimes Winchester and Chichester)- becoming its own county, South Hampshire, or if you want to fuck off the people living there to no ends, Solent City.

Colin Buchanan proposed in 1965 that the Government, in order to keep urban sprawl in check, build an urban area between Portsmouth and Southampton, effectively unifying the two cities. Though this was toyed with, and in some cases even happened, Buchanan's dream of a unified Solent region never came to fruiting. This was in part because of resistance from local authorities.

The dream of creating a southern powerhouse did not die, and has indeed endured to the present, as recent as a 2016 Government proposal that went down like cat shit on the dinner table. The Hampshire County Council was horrified by the idea, the Southampton Council rejected it, the Portsmouth Council, although open, was split, and the Isle of Wight sank it following its leadership snafu last year.

Of course the Redcliffe-Maud proposal would have seen a Portsmouth, South East Hampshire, and Isle of Wight County within the South East Province. Derek Senior proposed a 'Southampton Region' comprised of Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester, and their connective tissue. The actual 1972 Act proposed a full on Solent MA, with the abolition of Hampshire as a concept. It was amended, sadly.
 
Obviously, my first thought would be the enclaves of County Durham: Craikshire, Bedlingtonshire, Norhamshire and Islandshire. Not hugely likely to survive even as enclaves, let alone as counties themselves, although the latter two were a Rural District Council together until 74, and I suppose they could form the basis of a rather small North Northumberland Unitary of the same name.
 
Something that I think is underappreciated is actually just how much the pre-72 system did change. While often the expansion of urban areas or minor border adjustment was successfully blocked, there's actually a strong history of border expansions at various points.

Just to speak locally, Long Eaton UDC expanded to encompass most of Sawley and Wilsthorpe parish in 1921 and 1934, Derby was expanded to its modern boundaries in 1962, Alvaston and Boulton UDC was established in 1894 and abolished in 1934, Matlock went through several expansions through the 30s to take in most of the surrounding urban settlements, Ilkeston gaining Kirk Hallam in 1934, and that's just the one's I've come across.

It's food for thought really.
 
I used to quite like living in Wood Green and putting Middlesex as my address until I found out about Ossulstone which I was gutted I hadn’t known about when living in Hackney because I would have put that as my address.

So what about if the hundred of Ossulstone had become a County because of population and the development of an earlier council structure?
 
I don't I've ever thought of the 'lets just solve the population issue by giving county powers to hundreds' as a possibility before, but it's intruiging.

I suppose the issue is that it would only work in a few places due to all the exclaves.
 
Alex Richards said:
I don't I've ever thought of the 'lets just solve the population issue by giving county powers to hundreds' as a possibility before, but it's intruiging.

I suppose the issue is that it would only work in a few places due to all the exclaves.
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Well I just meant due to Ossulstone being so populous... but yeah what if all hundreds with over X population were given powers
 
SteveBP said:
Well I just meant due to Ossulstone being so populous... but yeah what if all hundreds with over X population were given powers
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Well, it would never be 'hundreds over X many people' but you might see it happen with Ossulstone, West Derbyshire (that would be confusingly fun), Salford, maybe a couple of the Yorkshire one?
 
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