Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844


The Counties Act 1844, 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.

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 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 Act 1844 read in part as follows:
The Act went on to state 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.
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 counties, and by 1901 Stanground in Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely were the sole remaining examples.

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 east of Wrexham in Denbighshire and a single parish exclave north of Wrexham.

Bedfordshire

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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. Detached parts of Scottish counties persisted until the Local Government 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.