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Post by islington on Jun 5, 2022 19:05:03 GMT
My understanding with Derry is that the municipal boundary was the green line. Certainly it corresponds to the 1898-1973 county borough boundary. Thanks. And I think therefore also the Parliamentary boundary from 1868 to 1922.
It's good to get these things sorted.
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Post by minionofmidas on Jun 8, 2022 15:49:56 GMT
Right, onward and upward. I think I'll retrospectively declare that stuff I wrote about preallocation (prompted by J.G.Harston , whom I thank) as having been Fit the Fifth, so we move on to
The Use of Population in the Redistribution of 1885 - Fit the Sixth
England contains 134 boroughs of which 36 have populations exceeding 90000 and therefore are preallocated two seats. Of the 42 boroughs between 50000 and 90000, 12 currently have two or more seats so they are also preallocated a second seat. The remaining 30 boroughs between 50000 and 90000, and all 56 boroughs below 50000, are preallocated a single seat. In all 182 seats are preallocated to English boroughs.
England contains 48 counties of which 44 exceed 90000 and are preallocated two seats each. Westmorland and Huntingdonshire are below 90000 but above 50000 and are also preallocated two seats each because they have two currently. This leaves the Isle of Wight with a population of 73113 to be preallocated a single seat (as it has at present), while Rutland, with 21434, is the only English county below 50000 and is also preallocated only a single seat instead of the two it currently has. Thus 94 seats are preallocated to English counties.
In terms of overall population, however, English counties exceed boroughs by 12529852 to 12085163. If the current imbalance in favour of boroughs is to be rectified, therefore, a large number of seats must be assigned to counties before any additional seats are given to boroughs.
To put this in numbers, boroughs’ entitlement to an additional seat is 12085163 / 182.5 = 66220 and this is far exceeded by the figure of 12529852 / 94.5 = 132591 for the counties. The 277th English seat (i.e. the first in addition to the 276 preallocated) therefore goes to a county. In fact, the first 95 additional seats all go to counties: this takes us to the 371st English seat, the 189th to be awarded to a county, with a PV of 66471.
Counties’ PV for a 190th seat, however, is 66121 which is less than the PV of 66220 for a 183rd borough seat. So the 372nd English seat goes to a borough, and from this point counties and boroughs, with similar total populations, roughly alternate as further seats are added. By the time the English total of 460 is reached, the boroughs receive 226 seats, based on this strictly numerical method, while counties receive 234.
And these are the precise numbers assigned to boroughs and counties in 1885.
It is worth taking a moment to reflect on this. If this arose by chance, or from a process of political horse-trading, it is a remarkable coincidence because the numbers actually assigned are not roughly or broadly or approximately in line with the outcome of a numerical approach: they are precisely in line. The switching of even a single seat from county to borough, or vice versa, would result in a demonstrably less accurate distribution.
With only 18 seats effectively in play when seats are distributed between the UK nations, the exact congruence between the actual outcome and the mathematically predicted result might be dismissed as a mere coincidence. But here, with no fewer than 184 seats involved, we see exactly the same outcome in terms of the distribution between English boroughs and counties.
This would be more significant if a previously established list of boroughs and their boundaries had been available to the law's principal architects. Any late amendment to the Fifth Schedule, Contents and Boundaries of Boroughs with Altered Boundaries, would risk upsetting the math. I know there was a conscious decision to reduce borough representation to proportional levels (this was, literally, the whole point - after the Tories realized that extending the franchise without redrawing the constituencies would have been incredibly effective as a Liberal gerrymander), but exact proportionality (according to the mathematically fairest of the diverse formulas in use, too) strikes me as perhaps serendipitous. Also wondering about your county rules. How much worse do the numbers work if we assume a different set of rules, eg taking into account counties' whole population and seat numbers? Kent has several smallish boroughs. Yeah, I'd been meaning to read this thread for weeks, finally got around to it the last couple of days... |
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Post by islington on Jun 8, 2022 21:19:05 GMT
Right, onward and upward. I think I'll retrospectively declare that stuff I wrote about preallocation (prompted by J.G.Harston , whom I thank) as having been Fit the Fifth, so we move on to The Use of Population in the Redistribution of 1885 - Fit the Sixth England contains 134 boroughs of which 36 have populations exceeding 90000 and therefore are preallocated two seats. Of the 42 boroughs between 50000 and 90000, 12 currently have two or more seats so they are also preallocated a second seat. The remaining 30 boroughs between 50000 and 90000, and all 56 boroughs below 50000, are preallocated a single seat. In all 182 seats are preallocated to English boroughs.
England contains 48 counties of which 44 exceed 90000 and are preallocated two seats each. Westmorland and Huntingdonshire are below 90000 but above 50000 and are also preallocated two seats each because they have two currently. This leaves the Isle of Wight with a population of 73113 to be preallocated a single seat (as it has at present), while Rutland, with 21434, is the only English county below 50000 and is also preallocated only a single seat instead of the two it currently has. Thus 94 seats are preallocated to English counties.
In terms of overall population, however, English counties exceed boroughs by 12529852 to 12085163. If the current imbalance in favour of boroughs is to be rectified, therefore, a large number of seats must be assigned to counties before any additional seats are given to boroughs.
To put this in numbers, boroughs’ entitlement to an additional seat is 12085163 / 182.5 = 66220 and this is far exceeded by the figure of 12529852 / 94.5 = 132591 for the counties. The 277th English seat (i.e. the first in addition to the 276 preallocated) therefore goes to a county. In fact, the first 95 additional seats all go to counties: this takes us to the 371st English seat, the 189th to be awarded to a county, with a PV of 66471.
Counties’ PV for a 190th seat, however, is 66121 which is less than the PV of 66220 for a 183rd borough seat. So the 372nd English seat goes to a borough, and from this point counties and boroughs, with similar total populations, roughly alternate as further seats are added. By the time the English total of 460 is reached, the boroughs receive 226 seats, based on this strictly numerical method, while counties receive 234.
And these are the precise numbers assigned to boroughs and counties in 1885.
It is worth taking a moment to reflect on this. If this arose by chance, or from a process of political horse-trading, it is a remarkable coincidence because the numbers actually assigned are not roughly or broadly or approximately in line with the outcome of a numerical approach: they are precisely in line. The switching of even a single seat from county to borough, or vice versa, would result in a demonstrably less accurate distribution.
With only 18 seats effectively in play when seats are distributed between the UK nations, the exact congruence between the actual outcome and the mathematically predicted result might be dismissed as a mere coincidence. But here, with no fewer than 184 seats involved, we see exactly the same outcome in terms of the distribution between English boroughs and counties. (1) This would be more significant if a previously established list of boroughs and their boundaries had been available to the law's principal architects. Any late amendment to the Fifth Schedule, Contents and Boundaries of Boroughs with Altered Boundaries, would risk upsetting the math. I know there was a conscious decision to reduce borough representation to proportional levels (this was, literally, the whole point - after the Tories realized that extending the franchise without redrawing the constituencies would have been incredibly effective as a Liberal gerrymander), but exact proportionality (according to the mathematically fairest of the diverse formulas in use, too) strikes me as perhaps serendipitous. (2) Also wondering about your county rules. How much worse do the numbers work if we assume a different set of rules, eg taking into account counties' whole population and seat numbers? Kent has several smallish boroughs. Yeah, I'd been meaning to read this thread for weeks, finally got around to it the last couple of days... I hope you found the thread interesting and thanks for raising these excellent points. (1) I'll respond to this in more detail once I've thought about it a bit more but my initial reaction is that what you've put your finger on is a certain circularity about the whole exercise. We can't draw boundaries until we know the apportionments; but we can't apportion until we know the boundaries. So far as counties were concerned, I don't think there was much issue because they were simply the existing ones already in use, except that in Yorks and Lancs the existing divisions were used instead of the whole counties. But boroughs are trickier and I'll have a think about this before I post further.
(2) Well, I've supplied all the numbers and the formula for calculating PVs, so why not have a go and see how it works out? |
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YL
Non-Aligned
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Post by YL on Jun 9, 2022 8:55:09 GMT
You mentioned in an early post that there are some discrepancies between the figures you're using from Debrett and the 1891 census's figures from 10 years earlier. How many differences are there in the allocation if the latter are used instead? I did wonder whether the Sheffield anomaly might have been caused by an initial plan to expand the borough which was dropped at the last minute without correcting the allocation. But I don't think that works, because if you expand Sheffield enough for Sheffield 5 to overtake Manchester 7, you end up with an extra seat for English boroughs as a whole. I think there is actually an error regarding Sheffield in the Schedules, though it seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly: the Attercliffe Division is defined as "Attercliffe Ward, Park Ward, and The Parish of Heeley", while the Hallam Division is defined as Upper Hallam Ward and Nether Hallam Ward together with certain parts of Ecclesall Ward and St George's Ward. Comparing this with some other boroughs, you might think Heeley was outside the municipal boundaries at the time, but I didn't think it was, and checking contemporary maps confirms this and shows that at the time it was a detached part of Nether Hallam Ward [1]; the boundaries of the old Nether Hallam township were decidedly bonkers in places, and this was a remnant of that. So Heeley was defined as being part of both the Attercliffe and Hallam divisions. As I say this seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly, because dividing the counties and boroughs into divisions was presumably the final stage of the process and this just looks like an oversight as part of that process. [1] E.g. see this map surveyed 1889 to 1892 which very clearly shows the detached part of Nether Hallam Ward and shows it as part of Attercliffe division, while this map from the 1850s shows Heeley as already within the municipal and Parliamentary borough boundaries and as a detached part of Nether Hallam township. (The latter map also shows the bonkers boundaries of Nether Hallam as was; see the Crookes area in particular.) |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Jun 9, 2022 9:21:40 GMT
You mentioned in an early post that there are some discrepancies between the figures you're using from Debrett and the 1891 census's figures from 10 years earlier. How many differences are there in the allocation if the latter are used instead? I did wonder whether the Sheffield anomaly might have been caused by an initial plan to expand the borough which was dropped at the last minute without correcting the allocation. But I don't think that works, because if you expand Sheffield enough for Sheffield 5 to overtake Manchester 7, you end up with an extra seat for English boroughs as a whole. I think there is actually an error regarding Sheffield in the Schedules, though it seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly: the Attercliffe Division is defined as "Attercliffe Ward, Park Ward, and The Parish of Heeley", while the Hallam Division is defined as Upper Hallam Ward and Nether Hallam Ward together with certain parts of Ecclesall Ward and St George's Ward. Comparing this with some other boroughs, you might think Heeley was outside the municipal boundaries at the time, but I didn't think it was, and checking contemporary maps confirms this and shows that at the time it was a detached part of Nether Hallam Ward [1]; the boundaries of the old Nether Hallam township were decidedly bonkers in places, and this was a remnant of that. So Heeley was defined as being part of both the Attercliffe and Hallam divisions. As I say this seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly, because dividing the counties and boroughs into divisions was presumably the final stage of the process and this just looks like an oversight as part of that process. [1] E.g. see this map surveyed 1889 to 1892 which very clearly shows the detached part of Nether Hallam Ward and shows it as part of Attercliffe division, while this map from the 1850s shows Heeley as already within the municipal and Parliamentary borough boundaries and as a detached part of Nether Hallam township. (The latter map also shows the bonkers boundaries of Nether Hallam as was; see the Crookes area in particular.) I wonder if field ownership played a big part in that winding boundary. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jun 9, 2022 9:56:59 GMT
You mentioned in an early post that there are some discrepancies between the figures you're using from Debrett and the 1891 census's figures from 10 years earlier. How many differences are there in the allocation if the latter are used instead? I did wonder whether the Sheffield anomaly might have been caused by an initial plan to expand the borough which was dropped at the last minute without correcting the allocation. But I don't think that works, because if you expand Sheffield enough for Sheffield 5 to overtake Manchester 7, you end up with an extra seat for English boroughs as a whole. I think there is actually an error regarding Sheffield in the Schedules, though it seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly: the Attercliffe Division is defined as "Attercliffe Ward, Park Ward, and The Parish of Heeley", while the Hallam Division is defined as Upper Hallam Ward and Nether Hallam Ward together with certain parts of Ecclesall Ward and St George's Ward. Comparing this with some other boroughs, you might think Heeley was outside the municipal boundaries at the time, but I didn't think it was, and checking contemporary maps confirms this and shows that at the time it was a detached part of Nether Hallam Ward [1]; the boundaries of the old Nether Hallam township were decidedly bonkers in places, and this was a remnant of that. So Heeley was defined as being part of both the Attercliffe and Hallam divisions. As I say this seems unlikely to be the cause of the anomaly, because dividing the counties and boroughs into divisions was presumably the final stage of the process and this just looks like an oversight as part of that process. [1] E.g. see this map surveyed 1889 to 1892 which very clearly shows the detached part of Nether Hallam Ward and shows it as part of Attercliffe division, while this map from the 1850s shows Heeley as already within the municipal and Parliamentary borough boundaries and as a detached part of Nether Hallam township. (The latter map also shows the bonkers boundaries of Nether Hallam as was; see the Crookes area in particular.) I wonder if field ownership played a big part in that winding boundary. A lot of the boundaries are shown not as Def(aced) but actually Und(efined). So not even field boundaries. |
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2022 11:09:46 GMT
Right. This Sheffield stuff is fascinating and it's had me poring over old maps to try to work out the exact line of the boundary between the Central and Hallam divisions (I think I've got it now). And I think YL is right about the error in the schedule to the 1885 Act where the divisions of Sheffield are defined. They should have said 'Nether Hallam ward, except the parish of Heeley'. On the other hand, there's something in the main body of the Act to the effect that if there's an error in the boundary schedules, apply common sense (that's not the way they put it but it's what it amounts to). And it's obviously common sense for Heeley to be in Attercliffe rather than Hallam.
But I've also been looking more generally at the external boundaries of English boroughs (as opposed to the divisions within them) and how they were set, because it's an excellent point by a contributor whose name I know not how to represent or pronounce (ACWNIKNHTROP) that if seats are to be distributed between counties and boroughs in exact proportion, and then to individual counties and boroughs in almost exact proportion, then the boundaries have to be defined at the outset.
English counties, as I said last night, aren't really an issue because they are carried forward from the existing system, subject to a tweak to put the whole of the newly-formed Bacup MB in NE Lancs (and this small adjustment affected only NE Lancs and SE Lancs so it didn't alter the overall balance between counties and boroughs).
As for English boroughs, I've been through all 134 and broken them down as follows.
Exactly half, 67, are existing boroughs carried forward from the current system with no changes at all to their external boundary.
A further 33 are new boroughs, 25 of which are in the MBW area.
A further 14 are existing boroughs where the only change is that parts of the corresponding MB lying outside the existing Parliamentary boundary are added to it.
Another 3 are subject only to minor tidying-up, essentially the removal of exclaves or pene-exclaves.
That leaves only 17 where the changes are more complex.
The unchanged 67 don't seem to require any further comment (well, apart from Tower Hamlets but I'll deal with that when I cover the MBW area). I'll go through the remaining categories in further posts. |
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Post by minionofmidas on Jun 9, 2022 11:35:19 GMT
While the schedule in the law makes mention of the previous divisions of Lancashire and the West Riding (and no other county) the new divisions are still numbered through (N Lancs 1-4, NE Lancs 5-8 etc). How important were they, exactly? Does using them affect the math at all? I probably won't have time to look over the math myself this coming weekend, sorry.
One place I'd love to see some good maps of boundary evolution of after reading that schedule again is Liverpool. Just how small was the Municipal Borough at one time!?
(Oh, and my display name is a Japanese - a script I cannot read either - transliteration of Eintracht Frankfurt. I'll probably change it back to minionofmidas soon.)
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2022 12:29:10 GMT
While the schedule in the law makes mention of the previous divisions of Lancashire and the West Riding (and no other county) the new divisions are still numbered through (N Lancs 1-4, NE Lancs 5-8 etc). How important were they, exactly? Does using them affect the math at all? I probably won't have time to look over the math myself this coming weekend, sorry. One place I'd love to see some good maps of boundary evolution of after reading that schedule again is Liverpool. Just how small was the Municipal Borough at one time!? (Oh, and my display name is a Japanese - a script I cannot read either - transliteration of Eintracht Frankfurt. I'll probably change it back to minionofmidas soon.) Thanks, Minion, for clearing that up.
You're right about the numbering. In Lancs it went up to 23 and in Yorks 26. (And the numbering for Yorkshire covered the whole county, not just the W Riding.)
Yes, I do think it made a difference that Yorks and Lancs were treated in this distinct way, for three reasons.
- If you'd treated them as single counties, Lancs certainly would have got at least one extra seat because two of its divisions were underrepreesented: SE Lancs because of the 8-seat cap and NE Lancs for reasons as yet obscure.
- In fact, if you treat Lancs and Yorks undivided, you'd obviously have to get rid of the 8-seat cap and this means that, apart from any extra seats for Yorks and Lancs, Kent and Durham would also gain a seat apiece. So the last few counties to have seats distributed would miss out. Without working it out, I'm guessing six or seven seats would shift, a significant change.
- Moreover, the divisions of Lancs and Yorks were adhered to when it came to drawing the boundaries of the new single-member constituencies - each of the old divisions got a whole number of seats and the boundaries (Bacup aside) were not crossed. This is completely different from the treatment of existing divisions in other counties, which were ignored: seats were awarded to the county as a whole, and the boundaries of the new single-member constituencies were drawn without any regard to the former divisions.
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2022 12:42:13 GMT
Regarding Liverpool, here's the map prepared by the 1868 boundary commission. It uses the standard coloration for these maps: the existing Parliamentary boundary (set in 1832) is in blue and the municipal boundary is in green (in this case they were identical). The commission's proposed new boundary is in red, but this was one of the many cases where the commission's proposal was rejected by Parliament and the 1832 boundary stayed in place until 1885.
It's interesting that the commission proposed to add Bootle to Liverpool and 154 years later, this still hasn't happened.
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2022 14:42:18 GMT
And here's the Liverpool map from the 1885 commission. I think this one was implemented as proposed.
A few thoughts on this map -
- The areas (outlined in pink) added to the existing (i.e. 1832) boundaries are not dissimilar to what was unsuccessfully proposed in 1868, but they extend further to the south and less far to the north, in particular not including Bootle.
- The map also shows the nine single-member divisions into which the borough was split. Previously, Liverpool had returned three MPs elected at large.
- Walton, strung out along the city boundary, is awkwardly shaped; it is also poorly named, since Walton village itself was not included (it still lay outside the borough boundary).
- As a comment on the persistence of old boundaries, I think I'm right in saying that the three central divisions (Scotland, Exchange, Abercrombie) together comprise the old township of Liverpool, which was also the Parliamentary borough prior to the previous extension of the boundary in 1832.
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Post by minionofmidas on Jun 9, 2022 14:56:41 GMT
As a comment on the persistence of old boundaries, I think I'm right in saying that the three central divisions (Scotland, Exchange, Abercrombie) together comprise the old township of Liverpool, which was also the Parliamentary borough prior to the previous extension of 1832. ie the yellow line on the first map. These three constituencies and West Derby are also the only ones whose area is described in terms of wards (and West Derby Ward clearly describes the same area as "the part of the parish of West Derby within the municipal borough" would) - Scotland and West Derby consisting of one each, the others of five and six. Which rather sounds as if, when these wards were drawn (just how early was that!?), the later Scotland constituency was not yet very urbanized. |
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2022 15:12:22 GMT
As a comment on the persistence of old boundaries, I think I'm right in saying that the three central divisions (Scotland, Exchange, Abercrombie) together comprise the old township of Liverpool, which was also the Parliamentary borough prior to the previous extension of 1832. ie the yellow line on the first map. These three constituencies and West Derby are also the only ones whose area is described in terms of wards (and West Derby Ward clearly describes the same area as "the part of the parish of West Derby within the municipal borough" would) - Scotland and West Derby consisting of one each, the others of five and six. Which rather sounds as if, when these wards were drawn (just how early was that!?), the later Scotland constituency was not yet very urbanized. A single ward with a Parliamentary division to itself?
That's nothing - if I'm reading this map correctly, Everton ward contained two whole divisions (Everton and Kirkdale) and a decent slice of Walton as well.
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Post by minionofmidas on Jun 9, 2022 15:30:03 GMT
ie the yellow line on the first map. These three constituencies and West Derby are also the only ones whose area is described in terms of wards (and West Derby Ward clearly describes the same area as "the part of the parish of West Derby within the municipal borough" would) - Scotland and West Derby consisting of one each, the others of five and six. Which rather sounds as if, when these wards were drawn (just how early was that!?), the later Scotland constituency was not yet very urbanized. A single ward with a Parliamentary division to itself?
That's nothing - if I'm reading this map correctly, Everton ward contained two whole divisions (Everton and Kirkdale) and a decent slice of Walton as well.
Everton parish certainly covered all of Everton and decent parts of Kirkdale and Walton divisions but (like West Derby) was annexed in 1832. Suburbia.  Scotland ward is one of the 12 wards of pre-32 Liverpool. (On the topic of suburbia, Islington North division is also just a single ward, but that's with 4 divisions and 8 wards.) |
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Post by islington on Jun 11, 2022 12:22:26 GMT
I've been promising for ages to say something about the way borough boundaries were defined for the purposes of the 1885 redistribution and I've finally got it into a form I'm willing to share. I hope this also addresses very pertinent issues raised by Minion.
The Use of Population in the Redistribution of 1885 - Fit the Twelfth
If seats are to be distributed between counties and boroughs in exact proportion, and thereafter to individual counties and boroughs in almost exact proportion, then the external boundaries of counties and boroughs have to be defined at the outset.
There is evidence that this was indeed the case. This is looked at here from the point of view of England only, since this is where the great majority of seats were located. The indications are, though, that a similar approach was taken elsewhere in the UK.
For counties, the external boundaries were simply carried forward from the current arrangement. The only significant adjustment was the unification of Bacup MB in NE Lancs. Elsewhere, there do not seem to have been any changes at all in counties’ and county-equivalents’ external borders apart from a technical adjustment affecting W Yorks (N) and W Yorks (E) consequent on the expansion of Bradford. This means that counties’ external boundaries were set at the start, and that the role of the boundary commission was only to propose suitable divisions within counties (and it is notable that the only two undivided English counties, the Isle of Wight and Rutland, are the only two not mapped).
As for boroughs, the evidence suggests that in contrast to previous Reforms, there was no general review of boroughs' external boundaries. In both previous Reforms, the boundary commission mapped almost every surviving borough even where no change was proposed to the current boundary. But in 1885, with a few exceptions as noted below, boroughs were mapped only if they were to be divided. So again, this suggests the boundary commission’s brief was mainly, and possibly wholly, to address the internal boundaries between divisions of a borough, not to adjust the external boundary.
So how were external boundaries set?
Let us start with new boroughs, since by definition these all needed new boundaries.
Of the 33 new English boroughs in 1885, 25 were within the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) and these are considered separately below because it is clear that a distinct policy was applied to this area.
So the 1885 redistribution saw the creation of eight new boroughs outside the Metropolis. Populations are given in brackets: all were single-member except West Ham.
Two of these, Hanley (75912) and West Bromwich (56295), were the result of decisions to break up the boroughs of Stoke on Trent and Wednesbury respectively; they are addressed later in relation to the treatment of existing boroughs.
A further five were established features of the administrative map as either a municipal borough or a local government district. Two were immediately adjacent to the MBW but not part of it: Croydon MB (78840) and West Ham LGD (128953). Elsewhere in the country, Aston Manor LGD (53842) was on the northern fringes of Birmingham; its creation as a new Parliamentary borough was in practice (although not in theory) an eighth seat for Birmingham. Two were in Lancashire: Barrow in Furness MB (47259) and St Helens MB (57403). It would be interesting to check the 1881 census to see whether there were any MBs or LCDs of similar population that were not elevated to the status of Parliamentary boroughs.
The final ‘new’ borough was Great Yarmouth (46749), effectively the recreation of the old borough that had been disfranchised for corruption in 1866.
Of these eight new boroughs, West Ham had to be mapped because it was split into two divisions and Hanley was mapped as part of the relatively complex adjustments in the Stoke area. The others were not mapped.
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Post by islington on Jun 11, 2022 14:49:59 GMT
And now we come to the treatment of my neck of the woods: the Metropolis (as they called it in those days).
The Use of Population in the Redistribution of 1885 - Fit the Thirteenth The treatment of the MBW area offers further support to the proposition that the external, as opposed to internal, boundaries of boroughs were preset by an administrative or political decision.
It seems clear that in the Third Review two key decisions were taken in relation to the area covered by the Metropolitan Board of Works, extending across parts of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. First, that the entire MBW area should be included in one borough or another; and secondly, allied to this, that the MBW perimeter, despite its eccentricities and its exclaves and enclaves, should be a ‘hard’ boundary, not to be crossed by any borough.
Treating the MBW in this way would be a major step toward deciding the overall balance across England between boroughs and counties. Even if (as seems to have been the case) there was some late tinkering with borough boundaries within the MBW, it would merely shift population from one borough to another; it would not alter the overall numbers for boroughs and counties collectively.
The treatment of the MBW boundary as ‘hard’ was a new development in 1885. It had not been the case in the First and Second Reforms, when this area (the Bills of Mortality in 1832, which was adopted unchanged when the MBW was formed in [date (1856?)], did not appear to have any particular bearing on the boundary-drawing process. In 1832 many areas within the Bills were omitted from the newly-drawn boroughs around London, and in 1868 some boroughs mainly within the MBW included areas outside it.
The aim of previous Reforms regarding London had been to ensure the urban area was represented without awarding too many seats. The boroughs were therefore very large, combining together different areas of the growing Metropolis that might not necessarily have much to unite them. But the more population-based approach taken in 1885 meant that London’s representation would be greatly increased, and this allowed the existing boroughs to be broken up into smaller ones that more closely reflected the established parishes. This was clearly a policy decision, but it is not suggested it was motivated by party political considerations.
So 1885 saw a general overhaul of borough boundaries in the Metropolis, with only three boroughs surviving unaltered: the City of London (2), Southwark (3) and Tower Hamlets (7) (the numbers in brackets show the seats they received in the 1885 distribution).
The remaining seven boroughs lying largely or wholly within the MBW were broken up: namely Chelsea, Finsbury, Greenwich, Hackney, Lambeth, Marylebone, Westminster. This restructuring involved the creation of no fewer than 25 new boroughs in the Metropolis to cover the areas of the abolished boroughs as well as the parts of the MBW not previously within any borough.
On the whole, the new boroughs followed the existing pattern of parishes more closely than the old arrangement, with 15 comprising one parish only (seats in brackets): Bethnal Green (2), Chelsea (1), Deptford (1), Fulham (1), Hammersmith (1), Hampstead (1), Islington (4), Kensington (2), Lambeth (4), Marylebone (2), Newington (2), Paddington (2), St George Hanover Square (1), St Pancras (4), Shoreditch (2). The others combined two or more smaller parishes, also (where necessary) mopping up adjoining extra-parochial areas: Battersea & Clapham (2), Camberwell (3), Finsbury (3), Greenwich (1), Hackney (3), Lewisham (1), Strand (1), Wandsworth (1), Westminster (1), Woolwich (1).
It is notable that undivided boroughs were not mapped. The boundary commission mapped boroughs only if they needed to be divided. This again suggests that the number of boroughs and their external boundaries were preset by administrative or political decisions with little or no involvement by the boundary commission.
The arrangement in the south west of the MBW area (everything west of Lambeth, total population 210434) suggests a deliberate intent to ‘save’ a seat. In this area, which was not part of any Parliamentary borough, the largest parish was Battersea, 107262, with the remaining parishes in the area comprising the Wandsworth District of the MBW with 103172. If the area was to constitute two boroughs, this would have been the obvious arrangement, and indeed it was the one later adopted when Metropolitan boroughs were formed in [check date] 1900. But with both areas exceeding 90000 it would have given the area four seats, and it seems to have occurred to someone to ‘save’ a seat by combining Clapham parish with Battersea. This combination had 143642, therefore still only two seats, leaving Wandsworth with 66792 (one seat). (See the next section for something similar in the Stoke on Trent area.)
The difficulty of finding a suitable home for Penge, originally a detached part of Battersea but by now regarded as a parish in its own right, is attested to by the existence of two separate boundary commission maps awarding three seats to the new borough of Camberwell: in one, the borough comprises only the eponymous parish and in the other (the one finally adopted), Penge is added as an unnatural-looking (but contiguous) appendage at the southern end.
The treatment of Westminster and Tower Hamlets strongly suggests an element of political interference, probably at a late stage in the overall process. Westminster was a well-recognized area that had functioned as a Parliamentary borough with a compact and logical boundary that had been unchanged for centuries except for a minor tidying-up in 1832. Tower Hamlets, by contrast, was created only in 1832, bringing together a large number of parishes and extra-parochial areas, and it was in no sense a logical unit. It was, however, a particularly populous one and in 1868 its three northern parishes were separated out to form the new borough of Hackney, but this does not mean the remaining components were any more coherent as a whole.
Tower Hamlets was, in short, a far more plausible candidate than Westminster to be broken up into smaller boroughs and it seems this is what was originally planned as the boundary commissioners produced plans for a borough of Poplar (popn 156510) with 2 seats and a residual Tower Hamlets (282627) with 4. Meanwhile the commission also produced plans for an unaltered borough of Westminster, divided into the four seats for which its population of 229784 qualified it.
But at some point it must have struck someone in government that if Tower Hamlets, despite being a random assortment of parishes and extra-parochial areas, were left unchanged it would merit 7 seats rather than the total of 6 it would obtain if broken into two smaller parts. And Westminster, by contrast, despite being a coherent and long-established area, could with a little ingenuity be split into three boroughs, all admittedly artificial in nature but all, crucially, below 90000 and therefore receiving one seat each. In this way a seat might be transferred from Tory-voting Westminster to Liberal-voting Tower Hamlets.
This seems to have been done at a very late stage because the boundary commission does not appear to have prepared maps for this arrangement. Keeping Tower Hamlets united whilst dividing Westminster makes so little sense either administratively or on the ground that it very hard to see why it might be done except for political advantage.
It may be added that when in due course metropolitan boroughs were formed, Westminster was reunited as a borough and the Poplar area was hived off as a borough, with the rest of Tower Hamlets forming the borough of Stepney.
And for everyone's delectation, here's Camberwell as finally enacted (with added Penge).  |
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
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Post by YL on Jun 11, 2022 15:59:59 GMT
A further five were established features of the administrative map as either a municipal borough or a local government district. Two were immediately adjacent to the MBW but not part of it: Croydon MB (78840) and West Ham LGD (128953). Elsewhere in the country, Aston Manor LGD (53842) was on the northern fringes of Birmingham; its creation as a new Parliamentary borough was in practice (although not in theory) an eighth seat for Birmingham. Two were in Lancashire: Barrow in Furness MB (47259) and St Helens MB (57403). It would be interesting to check the 1881 census to see whether there were any MBs or LCDs of similar population that were not elevated to the status of Parliamentary boroughs. There is a table online showing the populations of all urban sanitary districts in England and Wales with populations of at least 50000 in the 1881 census: link. Only one USD on that list does not share its name with a Parliamentary borough: Ystradyfodwg, aka the Rhondda. |
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Post by David Ashforth on Jun 11, 2022 18:26:20 GMT
I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been posted or isn't relevant, but I noticed some references to Sheffield and I thought this 1885 map of Sheffield's wards and constituencies might be of interest. www.londonancestor.com/maps/bc-sheffield-e-th.htm |
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Post by islington on Jun 12, 2022 11:52:18 GMT
The Use of Population in the Redistribution of 1885 - Fit the Fourteenth We now turn to the 101 existing boroughs that continued in being after the 1885 redistribution. This may seem like a formidable task; but it is greatly eased by the fact that 67 – practically two-thirds – were simply waved through with their current boundaries unchanged.
Thus, it does not seem there was a general review of borough boundaries such as had taken place during the First and Second Reforms. Note too that the unchanged boroughs were not mapped by the boundary commission (except of course for the six that had to be divided). This suggests that the external boundaries of existing boroughs were changed only where there was a specific reason for doing so.
Of the 34 that were changed, more than half (19) were altered only in administratively straightforward and probably uncontroversial ways.
For 14 of them, this meant simply the extension of the Parliamentary borough to cover of any parts of the corresponding municipal borough not already included. The impact of this varied from place to place: in Bradford, for instance, it meant the addition of a small strip of territory on the eastern side of the Parliamentary borough; whereas in Nottingham it involved a very large increase both in the population of the borough and in the area it covered. But it was an administratively simple change, however large or small the impact in terms of population and area.
These 14 were: Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, Bury, Derby, Hull, King’s Lynn, Middlesbrough, Monmouth Boroughs, Nottingham, Oldham, Stafford, Stalybridge, York.
A further four, Boston, Darlington, Hastings and Maidstone, were subject to an equally simple change, namely the abolition of exclaves, in all cases involving only small numbers of inhabitants and in some cases located at a considerable distance from the parent borough. Boston, apart from losing exclaves, also lost a large (but sparsely populated) pene-enclave to the north of the town.
In the case of Wednesbury, the borough’s largest component, West Bromwich, was hived off to form a new borough: a major reduction in Wednesbury’s territory but a straightforward change in administrative terms. (It made no difference in terms of seat numbers because Wednesbury, with 124437, was grossly over size for a single-member borough and would have been preallocated a second seat had it been retained intact.)
The 19 boroughs with ‘straightforward’ boundary changes were mapped by the boundary commission only if they had to be divided (3 of the 19).
This leaves only 15 boroughs where the boundary changes were more complex.
Four very large boroughs, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester, had been the subject of extensions proposed by the boundary commission in 1868 but rejected by Parliament. These boroughs therefore went into the 1885 redistribution with their boundaries as set in 1832. Since they had experienced rapid growth over the intervening half century, an extension was overdue (although the extensions actually adopted did not noticeably correspond to those rejected in 1868).
Two smaller boroughs, Cheltenham and Reading, received extensions similar to those recommended but not proceeded with (or only partly proceeded with) in 1868.
Three boroughs, Ashton under Lyne, Salisbury and Wakefield, had been extended in 1868 and now received a further extension.
Three boroughs, Lincoln, Preston and Southampton, where no change had been recommended (or carried out) in 1868, now received extensions.
In north Staffs there were more complex changes as the existing large 2-member borough of Stoke on Trent had Hanley carved out of it as a new borough. This was part of a substantial restructuring in the area, partly at least (it seems) to avoid giving it too many seats. In 1881 Stoke, a 2-member borough created in 1832 comprising most of the Potteries, had 152394 inhabitants and the adjoining ancient borough of Newcastle under Lyme, also with 2 members, had 17493. Had the boundaries been left unchanged Stoke would have continued as an undivided 2-member borough while Newcastle would have lost one of its seats, so the area as a whole would have had 3 MPs. But the normal practice in 1885 of expanding Parliamentary boroughs to align with MB boundaries meant that Stoke should absorb the parts of Longton MB outside the borough. This was a significant expansion and probably would have added sufficient numbers to entitle Stoke to a third seat. Instead, Stoke duly acquired the rest of Longton but was greatly reduced overall by the loss of the whole northern part of the current Parliamentary borough. This reduced version of Stoke was explicitly cut to one member even though, with 62238, it was still above 50000; while the new Parliamentary borough of Hanley, although otherwise comprising the whole northern part of the old borough, did not include Tunstall, presumably because this would have taken it above 90000 and entitled it to two seats. Instead, Newcastle under Lyme, actually located at some distance from Tunstall and not having any particular ties to it, was expanded to include Tunstall and also include much of the intervening Wolstanton parish to keep the seat contiguous (but being careful to keep it below 50000 so that it did not retain its second seat – it had 49293). So in this area existing boundaries were adjusted so as to make them consistent with the new scheme but taking care not to award too many seats. See the map below, and note the similar example in the MBW area affecting Battersea and Wandsworth.
Finally, Warwick was a special case. It had fewer than 15000 inhabitants in 1881 but was the only such borough to survive anywhere in the UK. This was because it absorbed the larger adjacent town of Leamington Spa, as had been proposed, but rejected, in 1868.
Of the 15 boroughs with complex changes to their external boundaries, the four largest were divided and would have had to be mapped in any case but the other 11, although all undivided, were also mapped. This may mean that the commission had some influence on these boundaries; or simply that it was thought important to record them.
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
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Post by YL on Jun 12, 2022 13:54:08 GMT
How would a single Borough merging Newcastle UL with all of the “Six Towns” have worked?
I get the impression that you think Westminster/Tower Hamlets was an exception to the general principle that the Boroughs and Counties were defined first, then seats allocated, and then the divisions defined where necessary. So maybe someone was trying to engineer the seventh seat Tower Hamlets was entitled to if considered as a unit, and dividing Westminster into three Boroughs was the way chosen to do this while maintaining the principles of the allocation. Did any other London area Borough which was split into separate Boroughs lose seats compared with what it would have had if still been treated as a unit?
Speaking of the Westminster split, how unusual is the Borough of St George, Hanover Square in being named after a single building? Brighton Pavilion is a current example, I suppose.
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Scotland ward is one of the 12 wards of pre-32 Liverpool. (On the topic of suburbia, Islington North division is also just a single ward, but that's with 4 divisions and 8 wards.)