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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 28, 2023 9:01:15 GMT
Anyway, we do actually have national identity figures from the last census and they're fairly telling: 13.9% English for Monmouth, 6.1% for Newport, 5.5% for Torfaen, 4.4% for Blaenau Gwent and 3.9% for Caerphilly (with the figures not being notably different between the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire parts of the council area). The highest figures are all along the border itself (e.g. 20% in Monmouth Town) which, as there's a lot of movement back and forth all the time, suggests that a lot will simply just be people from England. Most of the rest of the border actually has higher proportions selecting English than the Monmouthshire stretch of it. How does it compare on the English side of the border? I note looking at TTWA maps that a small part of the Forest of Dean is in the Newport TTWA, and whilst Monmouth and Cinderford share a TTWA, it's not at all clear in which direction the commuting flows primarily go. |
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Post by islington on Sept 28, 2023 9:37:30 GMT
Was it as clearcut as that, though? Given that everywhere in Wales was legally part of England until the 20th century and that there was technically no border at all, then all that really matters is how people saw themselves, and as to that there really isn't any question: the Nonconformist churches that organized in the county were Welsh ones, the emergent miners unions of the late 19th century organized on the basis that Monmouthshire was Welsh and several of the leading figures in the great amalgamated South Wales Miners Federation were from Monmouthshire, and in political terms the county was covered by the South Wales Liberal Federation. When David Lloyd George angrily condemned the 'Newport English' at the SWLF meeting in Newport where the Cymru Fydd movement's attempt to merge the SWLF into its own Welsh National Federation (which in practice only covered the Northern half of Wales) as while the SWLF delegates wanted nothing to do with Cymru Fydd's loosely nationalist programme, they nevertheless believed themselves to be Welsh. What is true is that the gentry in Monmouthshire were primarily of English descent and, unlike the West Country families who poured into the county in their thousands in the 19th century and who became very Welsh very quickly, they retained an English identity.* This shaped a lot of the Antiquarian follies that undeniably did result in weird symbolic genuflections towards a socially non-existent English sentiment, but none of this mattered because (again) there was in a legal sense no 'Wales' and no border (which, of course, is why there was such inconsistency about the matter in terms of e.g. designating parliamentary seats and so on). As soon as Wales started to be treated as an entity distinct from England then there was never any serious dispute as to where the border had to go. *The pronunciation of certain placenames became (and remain, actually) a bit of shibboleth for this locally, including the name of the county itself: the first syllable of the local (and 'Welsh') pronunciation is 'Mon' and never 'Mun'.Was it as clearcut as that, though?
Yes, you can make a case that in a formal sense Wales was part of England until the 20th century, therefore there was no border at all. And the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542 and the Wales & Berwick Act 1746 seem to confirm this beyond refutation.
Or do they?
The trouble with this analysis is that it doesn't reflect the way things were actually done. Wales - that is, 12-county Wales, excluding Mons - was treated as a distinct unit in a number of ways. Its shires elected only one MP apiece compared with two in England (including Mons); and the main criminal court, the Court of Great Sessions in Wales, covered only the twelve counties, and effectively took them out of the normal English county assize system (whereas Monmouthshire had assizes like an English county and was part of the Oxford circuit). When legislation was passed applying to Wales specifically, it was usual to define its scope as 'Wales and Monmouthshire', implying that Monmouthshire was not strictly part of Wales; and correspondingly, on the rare occasions on which legislation applied specifically to England its scope was 'England except Monmouthshire' (whereas on the theory that Wales was part of England the formula should have been 'England except Wales').
So in terms of actual practice, I'd say that the position prior to 1974 was that Monmouthshire was strictly speaking part of England, but despite this is was the usual (but not invariable) custom to associate it with Wales, rather than England, for legislative purposes.
In cultural terms, however, I agree with you completely.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Sept 28, 2023 9:48:55 GMT
There are 851 Monmouthshire residents who were born in Wales but identify solely as English (and then another 119 who identify as English and British but not Welsh) - roughly 1%. The converse is actually much more common; 2,630 people were born in England but identify as Welsh. It's not really possible to say whether these are incomers or people who grew up in Wales but were born in maternity units in Hereford (which may serve the north and east of the county). Bristol as well, I suspect. The bridges mean that it is often more convenient for people in Chepstow and surrounds to get there than to Newport. |
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Sept 28, 2023 10:04:59 GMT
How does it compare on the English side of the border? I note looking at TTWA maps that a small part of the Forest of Dean is in the Newport TTWA, and whilst Monmouth and Cinderford share a TTWA, it's not at all clear in which direction the commuting flows primarily go. Tidenham parish has a pretty high proportion of people identifying as Welsh for somewhere in England, especially Sedbury where it is easily over 10% (i.e. comparable figures to the better known cases of Llanymynech and Weston Rhyn/St Martins in Shropshire). |
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Post by bjornhattan on Sept 28, 2023 10:36:47 GMT
Anyway, we do actually have national identity figures from the last census and they're fairly telling: 13.9% English for Monmouth, 6.1% for Newport, 5.5% for Torfaen, 4.4% for Blaenau Gwent and 3.9% for Caerphilly (with the figures not being notably different between the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire parts of the council area). The highest figures are all along the border itself (e.g. 20% in Monmouth Town) which, as there's a lot of movement back and forth all the time, suggests that a lot will simply just be people from England. Most of the rest of the border actually has higher proportions selecting English than the Monmouthshire stretch of it. How does it compare on the English side of the border? I note looking at TTWA maps that a small part of the Forest of Dean is in the Newport TTWA, and whilst Monmouth and Cinderford share a TTWA, it's not at all clear in which direction the commuting flows primarily go. Welsh identity reaches 8% in the MSOA covering the far west of the Forest - and 16% in parts of Sedbury. There are also some streets in Sedbury (such as Buttington Road) where the proportion identifying as Welsh is higher than the proportion identifying as English. The proportion identifying as Welsh declines quickly as you head east though - falling to 2-3% in Coleford and Lydney and less than 2% in Cinderford. Oddly English identity is actually higher in Monmouth than it is in Coleford, Cinderford, or Lydney. This is due to very high levels of British identity in England compared with Wales; I believe the options were presented in a different order between the two (this is certainly the case between 2011 England and 2021 England, making comparisons across time very difficult). |
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Post by YL on Sept 28, 2023 10:58:36 GMT
Oddly English identity is actually higher in Monmouth than it is in Coleford, Cinderford, or Lydney. This is due to very high levels of British identity in England compared with Wales; I believe the options were presented in a different order between the two (this is certainly the case between 2011 England and 2021 England, making comparisons across time very difficult). This is true along large sections of the border. All of the Powys MSOAs bordering England have higher proportions of English identity than their neighbours in Shropshire or Herefordshire, and this is almost the case in Wrexham and Flintshire as well. I assumed this was because people who might in England choose between "English" and "British" were more likely to choose the former when they had moved to Wales, but if the questionnaire design was different that explanation wouldn't be necessary. English identity is noticeably low around Oswestry -- more like urban England than the rural and small town Midlands -- but Welsh identity isn't that high, though there are a few output areas in Weston Rhyn and St Martin's where it's in double figures and higher than English identity. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Sept 28, 2023 11:12:51 GMT
As soon as Wales started to be treated as an entity distinct from England then there was never any serious dispute as to where the border had to go. Not true. One of the first Welsh specific pieces of legislation in centuries was the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 which closed pubs on Sundays and did not apply to Monmouthshire. This only changed with a 1915 wartime extension which was made permanent in 1921 (legally the year the war ended). This extension was not universally popular and became the breaking point for the Newport Conservatives who rejected the Coalition and the sitting Lloyd George Liberal MP, adopting their own candidate who won the famous by-election the following year. However the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889 did include the county, reflecting the mess. |
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Sept 28, 2023 11:13:25 GMT
Can someone explain why England even needs regions?
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Post by bjornhattan on Sept 28, 2023 11:51:48 GMT
Oddly English identity is actually higher in Monmouth than it is in Coleford, Cinderford, or Lydney. This is due to very high levels of British identity in England compared with Wales; I believe the options were presented in a different order between the two (this is certainly the case between 2011 England and 2021 England, making comparisons across time very difficult). This is true along large sections of the border. All of the Powys MSOAs bordering England have higher proportions of English identity than their neighbours in Shropshire or Herefordshire, and this is almost the case in Wrexham and Flintshire as well. I assumed this was because people who might in England choose between "English" and "British" were more likely to choose the former when they had moved to Wales, but if the questionnaire design was different that explanation wouldn't be necessary. English identity is noticeably low around Oswestry -- more like urban England than the rural and small town Midlands -- but Welsh identity isn't that high, though there are a few output areas in Weston Rhyn and St Martin's where it's in double figures and higher than English identity. Oswestry does have quite a high level of immigration with some of the town centre output areas having close to a 50% minority population (nearly all of these being immigrants from Eastern Europe - mostly Bulgarians). I would imagine this further contributes to lower levels of English identity in the town. |
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Post by mrpastelito on Sept 28, 2023 12:02:34 GMT
And obviously Greater London should be extended to the M25 or thereabouts. That would be incredibly unpopular especially with the recent controversy. If anything the reverse would be more popular– Havering being returned to Essex for example. In southwest London there would probably be an argument for combining the rich areas on both sides of the current Greater London boundary– Richmond, Kingston, Merton, and Sutton from Greater London along with Spelthorne, Runnymede, Epsom and Ewell, Elmbridge from Surrey, into a new "North Surrey" authority area separate to Greater London. "The Gated Community of North Surrey"? One would have to exclude Sutton and most of Mitcham & Morden constituency of course, as one has to draw a line, certainly. Lower Morden could be admitted on probation. |
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Post by kvasir on Sept 28, 2023 12:28:15 GMT
But Buxton is very Derbyshire. You need boundaries somewhere, the fact is that they are never perfect, not least because of changes of development and travel connections. The issue is that regional links and local identity don't match (see North Lincolnshire, the northernmost bits of Yorkshire near Teesside, etc) It would be possible to split off High Peak and move it into the North West England region, just as you could do the same with the former Craven authority area from Yorkshire. The question is what the local opinion of that would be. Craven? Really? Skipton is right next to City of Bradford Metropolitan District. That represents around 15,000 of the 60,000 people in the former district. The areas immediately around Skipton include Embsay, Low Bradley, Cross Hills, Sutton-in-Craven, Glusburn Green, Cononley, Carleton, and Gargrave. Combined these areas are half the district. Literally part of the Leeds City Region. And you want to move it to the North West? That is jumping the shark on this thread. |
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 28, 2023 14:18:34 GMT
Can someone explain why England even needs regions? Statistics. Television regions. Lower football leagues. Pages of an atlas. |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Sept 28, 2023 14:42:06 GMT
Can someone explain why England even needs regions? Statistics. Television regions. Lower football leagues. Pages of an atlas. Can't believe it's taken this long to get to the ITV regions map tbh  |
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Post by timrollpickering on Sept 28, 2023 14:48:00 GMT
Thames? That's a very out of date map.
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Sept 28, 2023 14:49:21 GMT
Thames? That's a very out of date map. It's the map most of us on this forum will recognise as being locked in as fact, you know what some posters are like for wanting things to stay the same as a fixed point in their history  |
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 28, 2023 15:09:19 GMT
Thames? That's a very out of date map. It's the map most of us on this forum will recognise as being locked in as fact, you know what some posters are like for wanting things to stay the same as a fixed point in their history A lot of them do make more sensible government regions than the ones we've got. Greater London Authority should be everywhere in the Thames TV region. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Sept 28, 2023 15:36:15 GMT
Thames? That's a very out of date map. It's the map most of us on this forum will recognise as being locked in as fact, you know what some posters are like for wanting things to stay the same as a fixed point in their history And it means you can avoid putting up the name Carlton. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Sept 28, 2023 15:36:56 GMT
It's the map most of us on this forum will recognise as being locked in as fact, you know what some posters are like for wanting things to stay the same as a fixed point in their history A lot of them do make more sensible government regions than the ones we've got. Greater London Authority should be everywhere in the Thames TV region. I can remember the BBC having a wider London & the South East region which went right out into deepest Kent. |
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Khunanup
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Post by Khunanup on Sept 28, 2023 15:58:07 GMT
A lot of them do make more sensible government regions than the ones we've got. Greater London Authority should be everywhere in the Thames TV region. I can remember the BBC having a wider London & the South East region which went right out into deepest Kent. It included East Sussex too, until they turned around the transmitter at Ditchling (I think) and then BBC South went right along the coast before the current BBC South East region (sans London) was created in the 00s. |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Sept 28, 2023 16:12:49 GMT
It's the map most of us on this forum will recognise as being locked in as fact, you know what some posters are like for wanting things to stay the same as a fixed point in their history And it means you can avoid putting up the name Carlton. It means I acknowledge that we're mostly a group of men who haven't quite kept up with music, sport, films or indeed ITV regions since whenever we all turned ~35. |
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