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Post by johnloony on Jun 16, 2022 12:29:35 GMT
I think the East End developments are newer, so that can be LB Newham and the other one could be LB Oldham. Sorted. You are really hamming it up now. What we really need is for all the villages in England whose names end in “-ham” to be combined into one big local authority - with dozens of tiny exclaves scattered all over the place - and then for them to seek separation from each other in a Bangladesh-style war of independence. |
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 16, 2022 12:38:26 GMT
You are really hamming it up now. Sorry. You're right, we should get back to discussing the serious questions on this forum. How Boris pigged out at parties, how the boundary commission butchered the existing map or certain politicians' shady pork barrel politics. What exactly is your beef? |
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Post by andrewteale on Jun 16, 2022 12:45:05 GMT
You are really hamming it up now. What we really need is for all the villages in England whose names end in “-ham” to be combined into one big local authority - with dozens of tiny exclaves scattered all over the place - and then for them to seek separation from each other in a Bangladesh-style war of independence. You could call it Pork Barrel District Council. |
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Post by therealriga on Jun 16, 2022 12:57:41 GMT
Sorry. You're right, we should get back to discussing the serious questions on this forum. How Boris pigged out at parties, how the boundary commission butchered the existing map or certain politicians' shady pork barrel politics. What exactly is your beef? I just get angry when MPs have their snout in the trough instead of bringing home the bacon for their constituencies. |
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 16, 2022 13:05:07 GMT
What we really need is for all the villages in England whose names end in “-ham” to be combined into one big local authority - with dozens of tiny exclaves scattered all over the place - and then for them to seek separation from each other in a Bangladesh-style war of independence. You could call it Pork Barrel District Council. It'll be for the chop under the next re-organisation. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Jun 16, 2022 14:30:40 GMT
What exactly is your beef? I just get angry when MPs have their snout in the trough instead of bringing home the bacon for their constituencies. And then they do a chicken run. |
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Post by islington on Jun 18, 2022 12:41:35 GMT
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.
I'm quoting this to correct myself with regard to the words in bold. Although Bradford did indeed gain a strip of territory to the east as described, the inclusion of the whole MB meant that it also received a much larger addition of territory to the north and west. My mistake.
I'm not sure which among the 14 might have been a better example of a more modest extension because only three - Bradford, Hull and Nottingham - were mapped in 1885 (because they needed to be divided). The other eleven weren't mapped so checking the extent of the boundary change is a more complicated exercise.
The county maps produced in 1885 show boroughs as greyed-out areas but something that I have realized, in looking at this, is that they are inconsistent. Sometimes they show the boroughs' post-1885 boundaries but not always. The Sussex map, for instance, shows Hastings without its exclaves, whereas the Kent and Co Durham maps show Maidstone and Darlington with their exclaves still included - even though in all three cases the exclaves were removed in 1885. I'm not sure what to make of this. In all three cases, though, the populations of the exclaves would have been very small.
A similar discrepancy where a non-trivial population would have been involved concerns Preston. This borough, although undivided, was the subject of relatively complex extensions and therefore was mapped. What is interesting is that the map shows Walton-le-Dale as one of the areas to be added to Preston, and the map of NE Lancs is in agreement - it shows the area greyed out. But in the final Act, although all the other additions to Preston went through, Walton-le-Dale did not. So maybe this was a relatively late change, perhaps as a result of local objections (and indeed to this day Walton is not part of Preston).
If seats were apportioned to counties on the assumption that Walton-le-Dale would become part of Preston and its population would therefore not count towards the total for NE Lancs, could that account for the award of only 4 seats instead of the 5 NE Lancs should have received?
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 18, 2022 20:00:41 GMT
A similar discrepancy where a non-trivial population would have been involved concerns Preston. This borough, although undivided, was the subject of relatively complex extensions and therefore was mapped. What is interesting is that the map shows Walton-le-Dale as one of the areas to be added to Preston, and the map of NE Lancs is in agreement - it shows the area greyed out. But in the final Act, although all the other additions to Preston went through, Walton-le-Dale did not. So maybe this was a relatively late change, perhaps as a result of local objections (and indeed to this day Walton is not part of Preston). If seats were apportioned to counties on the assumption that Walton-le-Dale would become part of Preston and its population would therefore not count towards the total for NE Lancs, could that account for the award of only 4 seats instead of the 5 NE Lancs should have received?
Is the population of Walton-le-Dale in the range which would have had that effect while not also affecting the balance of boroughs and counties across England as a whole? (Indeed, is there even such a range? When I was wondering about Sheffield's anomalous fifth seat, I considered whether it might come from a cancelled extension, but any extension big enough to have given Sheffield an entitlement of five seats within English boroughs would move one from counties to boroughs overall as well.) NB Walton-le-Dale has at times been in Preston constituencies. |
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Post by islington on Jun 19, 2022 11:32:56 GMT
A similar discrepancy where a non-trivial population would have been involved concerns Preston. This borough, although undivided, was the subject of relatively complex extensions and therefore was mapped. What is interesting is that the map shows Walton-le-Dale as one of the areas to be added to Preston, and the map of NE Lancs is in agreement - it shows the area greyed out. But in the final Act, although all the other additions to Preston went through, Walton-le-Dale did not. So maybe this was a relatively late change, perhaps as a result of local objections (and indeed to this day Walton is not part of Preston). If seats were apportioned to counties on the assumption that Walton-le-Dale would become part of Preston and its population would therefore not count towards the total for NE Lancs, could that account for the award of only 4 seats instead of the 5 NE Lancs should have received?
(Indeed, is there even such a range? When I was wondering about Sheffield's anomalous fifth seat, I considered whether it might come from a cancelled extension, but any extension big enough to have given Sheffield an entitlement of five seats within English boroughs would move one from counties to boroughs overall as well.) NB Walton-le-Dale has at times been in Preston constituencies. The answer to the emboldened question is yes. If we assume a population of 20000 for WleD (and to be frank I think this is really on the high side) and include it in Preston, it would take the popn of NE Lancs down to 239176. This would reduce its PV for a 5th seat from 57595 to 53150, which comes in the category of 'close, but no cigar'. It would also increase the aggregate total for boroughs, of course, at the expense of counties; the effect of that is to reduce counties' PV for a 234th seat from 53661 to 53575, and this is still greater than boroughs' PV for a 227th, which goes up from 53356 to 53444. So the split would remain 234-226 in favour of counties. However, I'm guessing that WleD (shown here at the western end of NE Lancs, greyed as if it were part of a borough) would be nearer 10000 than 20000, and this is not enough, by itself, to take NE Lancs down to 4. But I'm also looking at Bacup (in the south east of NE Lancs), where the boundary separating NE Lancs from the rest of Lancs, shown in a distinctive manner with small crosses alternating with dashes, intriguingly splits into two. One version traces the ancient hundredal boundary (and Parliamentary boundary between NE Lancs and SE Lancs going into the 1885 redistribution), which cuts right through the middle of the growing industrial town of Bacup; the other version runs further south east, thus bringing the whole of Bacup MB (formed 1882) into NE Lancs. Since this is almost the only shift, anywhere in the UK, of the external boundary of a county (or county-equivalent), it's hard not to suppose that the latter version of the line, the one eventually adopted, was pressed for by Bacup MB so that the town would not be divided between seats. But the fact that both lines are shown suggests that this may have been the subject of debate.
Now, I admit the chain of reasoning is getting rather long here, but if when county seats were apportioned the assumption was both that WleD would be included in Preston and that the line between NE Lancs and SE Lancs would be the existing one, i.e. going through the middle of Bacup, then I'd be reasonably confident that these two factors, taken together, would have reduced the population of NE Lancs sufficiently to explain its failure to be apportioned a 5th seat. And as for the overall balance between counties and boroughs, WleD is the only factor involved because the shift of the line in Bacup transfers population only between counties.
Really I need to spend a day at a reference library with a hard copy of the 1881 census (the Histpop version online is really not satisfactory to use).
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Post by islington on Jun 19, 2022 11:48:09 GMT
While we are in this part of the world, allow me to interrupt this disquisition with a quick quiz. Here are two boundary commission maps from 1885, one from VoB -
And one from London Ancestor -
Simple question: What's the difference?
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Post by minionofmidas on Jun 19, 2022 12:05:17 GMT
While we are in this part of the world, allow me to interrupt this disquisition with a quick quiz. Here are two boundary commission maps from 1885, one from VoB -
And one from London Ancestor -
Simple question: What's the difference?
Middleton-Prestwich boundary, west of Oldham. |
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 19, 2022 12:07:48 GMT
An area (I think it's the parishes of Tonge and Alkrington) is shown as part of Middleton on one map and part of Prestwick (sic) on the other. It appears to have actually ended up in Middleton.
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Post by grahammurray on Jun 19, 2022 13:50:16 GMT
While we are in this part of the world, allow me to interrupt this disquisition with a quick quiz. Here are two boundary commission maps from 1885, one from VoB -
And one from London Ancestor -
Simple question: What's the difference?
I have never seen it spelt as Prestwick until now. |
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Post by islington on Jun 19, 2022 14:19:10 GMT
Thanks all, two correct answers. The existence of two maps shows there was a degree of fluidity before the divisional boundaries were finalized.
In terms of the administrative map, Tonge and Alkrington were originally in the huge parish of Prestwich cum Oldham so you can see why it may originally have been intended to attach them to the new Prestwich seat. But it would have taken the boundary very close to Middleton town so it made more sense on the ground to include them in Middleton as was eventually done (i.e. of the two maps, it was the London Ancestor version that prevailed).
'Prestwick' must just be an error, I think. It is spelt as 'Prestwich' both on the base map and in the 1885 Redistribution Act itself.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 19, 2022 16:11:02 GMT
If we assume a population of 20000 for WleD (and to be frank I think this is really on the high side) and include it in Preston, it would take the popn of NE Lancs down to 239176. This would reduce its PV for a 5th seat from 57595 to 53150, which comes in the category of 'close, but no cigar'. It would also increase the aggregate total for boroughs, of course, at the expense of counties; the effect of that is to reduce counties' PV for a 234th seat from 53661 to 53575, and this is still greater than boroughs' PV to a 227th, which goes up from 53356 to 53444. So the split would remain 234-226 in favour of counties. I've just done the calculations again, and this is correct, so I must have made a mistake previously, and it is indeed possible that a cancelled extension explains the Sheffield anomaly as well. However there is no sign of such a proposed extension on either the West Riding South or Derbyshire maps on Vision of Britain, so there isn't really any evidence for this. Now, back to the MBW area... 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.) Having looked at the MBW districts in a bit more detail, I think there's nothing particularly out of order in this area. It appears that Battersea parish was still part of Wandsworth district at the time (according to Wikipedia it was removed in 1888) so the obvious thing to do based on the MBW boundaries would have been to have a Wandsworth borough covering the whole district, which would have had an entitlement to three seats, the same number the area actually got. There might be more of a case that south east London had a seat removed. In this area there were the three districts of Greenwich, Lewisham and Plumstead and the standalone parish of Woolwich. As you've said, Penge was removed from Lewisham district (of which it was a detached part) and added to Camberwell, and Deptford St Paul was separated from Greenwich as Deptford borough, but furthermore Plumstead district was carved up between Woolwich, Greenwich and Lewisham. I don't know what the populations of these were; if there had been separate Plumstead, Greenwich, Lewisham and Woolwich boroughs, would any of them have been unreasonably small? |
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Post by islington on Jun 20, 2022 14:34:28 GMT
Now, back to the MBW area... 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.) Having looked at the MBW districts in a bit more detail, I think there's nothing particularly out of order in this area. It appears that Battersea parish was still part of Wandsworth district at the time (according to Wikipedia it was removed in 1888) so the obvious thing to do based on the MBW boundaries would have been to have a Wandsworth borough covering the whole district, which would have had an entitlement to three seats, the same number the area actually got. There might be more of a case that south east London had a seat removed. In this area there were the three districts of Greenwich, Lewisham and Plumstead and the standalone parish of Woolwich. As you've said, Penge was removed from Lewisham district (of which it was a detached part) and added to Camberwell, and Deptford St Paul was separated from Greenwich as Deptford borough, but furthermore Plumstead district was carved up between Woolwich, Greenwich and Lewisham. I don't know what the populations of these were; if there had been separate Plumstead, Greenwich, Lewisham and Woolwich boroughs, would any of them have been unreasonably small? Regarding Battersea, I stand corrected. I knew it had been removed from the Wandsworth District but I wrongly assumed this must have happened before 1885.
So yes, associating Clapham with it maybe wasn't so unreasonable after all.
Let's look at your suggestion of southeast London as a candidate for having had a seat removed.
We can define this as the area covered by the Lewisham, Greenwich and Plumstead MBW Districts, plus the parish of Woolwich. The last of these was officially part of the MBW but it kept special powers it had been given by Act of Parliament before the MBW was formed so in practice the MBW more or less worked round it. The whole area totalled 303276 in 1881, which would definitely have been 5 seats; while Camberwell without Penge was 186593, in other words 3 seats. So yes, on these numbers, a seat was saved because the final outcome in 1885 was that the entire area, including Camberwell, received 7.
On the other hand, though ...
MBW District boundaries in the area were arguably not very satisfactory. First, they needed, literally, to work round Woolwich, which as a result was virtually surrounded by Plumstead District. Secondly, they needed to accommodate Penge, which jutted out most awkwardly from the MBW's southern boundary and was included within it only because Penge, although by 1885 regarded as a parish in its own right, had originally been an outlying part of Battersea and had been caught up when the latter was included in the Bills of Mortality and therefore, later, in the MBW; since Camberwell, the only part of the MBW with which Penge had a boundary, was an independent vestry, the only option was to lump Penge in with Lewisham District even though there was no common boundary.
Moreover, there was the current PB of Greenwich to think about, which united Deptford, Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich, and (since 1868) Plumstead. If you followed the MBW districts you would have had to sever the existing very natural association of Woolwich and Plumstead in the same seat. And as for Penge: while there is evidence that at one time it was intended to make Camberwell a PB on its own with 3 seats, presumably then keeping Penge with Lewisham, I am guessing that people jibbed at the non-contiguity of that arrangement.
Removing Penge (18650) leaves the rest of the area with 284626, which is right on the cusp between 4 and 5 (it is slightly more than Sheffield, for instance). It ended up as 4 single-seat boroughs: - Lewisham (67500), comprising Lewisham and Lee. The latter was from Plumstead District but combining it with Lewisham made sense on the ground and avoided what would otherwise have been a very awkward boundary in the Lewisham town area.
- Woolwich (74963), comprising Woolwich plus Plumstead and Eltham from Plumstead District. Plumstead was a logical addition (and was already associated with Woolwich in the Greenwich seat), while Eltham had to go somewhere. I haven't got 1881 numbers for Woolwich parish by itself but I suspect that by London standards it may have been on the small side for a seat.
- Greenwich (65411), comprising Greenwich and Deptford St Nicholas (both Greenwich District) and Charlton and Kidbrooke (both Plumstead District). The latter two made sense because Charlton was between Greenwich and Woolwich, while Kidbrooke lay just to the south of Charlton with which its boundaries were intricately jumbled up. What has always troubled me in this area, though, is why Deptford St Nick was included, since this was the historic original heart of Deptford along the riverfront. Its population was only 6941 so the Greenwich seat would have had reasonable numbers without it.
- Deptford (76752) comprised Deptford St Paul (Greenwich District) - essentially the whole of Deptford except its original heart, but including the Hatcham area which was the part of Deptford parish officially in Surrey.
It may be noted that the PB boundaries set in 1885 were the ones used when Metropolitan Boroughs were set up in 1900. On the whole, and without any regard to the possible saving of a seat, they don't seem an unreasonable way of dividing up the area, although left to myself I'd definitely have put Deptford St Nick in the Deptford seat even though this would have meant a bigger disparity between Deptford (83693) and Greenwich (58470).
My suggestion that there would have been concerns about the non-contiguity of Penge with Lewisham may seem questionable in view of the number of non-contiguous seats created in 1885 elsewhere in the MBW area: Westminster, SGHS, Finsbury Central, Wandsworth (2 detached parts), Chelsea. But in each of these resulted only because a parish within the seat had a detached part. Penge, however, is a somewhat different case because had it been included in Lewisham, it would have been an entire detached parish; as would Wapping, had it been included in the Limehouse seat with the rest of Limehouse District.
Edited to add: Woolwich parish apparently 36665 in 1881, thus rather small to be created a new PB. Of course there were many PBs smaller than this that survived the 1885 redistribution but the operative word is 'survived': i.e., they were all existing ones. The smallest new PB created in 1885 was Fulham, with 42900.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 20, 2022 14:39:25 GMT
I was hitherto unaware of an area of London called Hatcham
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Post by islington on Jun 20, 2022 14:45:48 GMT
The ancient parish of Deptford was mainly in Kent but Hatcham is the part that lay across the historic county boundary with Surrey. It's actually a remarkably close fit with the area covered by the modern wards of New Cross Gate and Telegraph Hill.
You can see it on the 1832 Boundary Commissioners' map here (you need to look closely, but the county boundary is shown on this map as the faint stippled line separating the Hatcham area from the rest of Deptford).
 The name's not forgotten: it is used for a school in the area and some local businesses, and features in a couple of street names.
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 20, 2022 14:51:29 GMT
I was hitherto unaware of an area of London called Hatcham The old Liberal club was known as the Hatcham until its demise some time in the noughties. (picture of it in the link below).
I wonder when the name fell out of common usage. I have to say I've never come across it before.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 20, 2022 14:56:44 GMT
I was hitherto unaware of an area of London called Hatcham The old Liberal club was known as the Hatcham until its demise some time in the noughties. (picture of it in the link below).
I wonder when the name fell out of common usage. I have to say I've never come across it before.
Actually you have - and so have I. In fact the post above looks remarkably familiar vote-2012.proboards.com/post/1057125/thread |
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