1.
City status in the United Kingdom
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The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a city. Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, the status does not apply automatically on the basis of any particular criteria, although in England and Wales it was traditionally given to towns with diocesan cathedrals. City status in Ireland was granted to far fewer communities than in England and Wales, in Scotland, city status did not explicitly receive any recognition by the state until the 19th century. At that time, a revival of grants of city status took place, first in England, where the grants were accompanied by the establishment of new cathedrals, and later in Scotland and Ireland. The abolition of corporate bodies as part of successive local government reforms. However, letters patent have been issued for most of the cities to ensure the continuation or restoration of their status. At present, Rochester and Elgin are the former cities in the United Kingdom. The name City does not, in itself, denote city status, a number of large towns in the UK are bigger than some small cities, but cannot legitimately call themselves a city without the royal designation. The initial cities of Britain were the fortified settlements organised by the Romans as the capitals of the Celtic tribes under Roman rule, the British clerics of the early Middle Ages later preserved a traditional list of the 28 Cities which was mentioned by Gildas and listed by Nennius. In the 16th century, a town was recognised as a city by the English Crown if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits. This association between having a cathedral and being called a city was established when Henry VIII founded dioceses in six English towns, a long-awaited resumption of creating dioceses began in 1836 with Ripon. Ripon Town Council assumed that this had elevated the town to the rank of a city, the next diocese formed was Manchester and its Borough Council began informally to use the title city. When Queen Victoria visited Manchester in 1851, widespread doubts surrounding its status were raised, the pretension was ended when the borough petitioned for city status, which was granted by letters patent in 1853. This eventually forced Ripon to regularise its position, its city status was recognised by Act of Parliament in 1865, from this year Ripon bore city status whilst the rapidly expanding conurbation of Leeds – in the Ripon diocese – did not. The Manchester case established a precedent that any municipal borough in which an Anglican see was established was entitled to petition for city status, accordingly, Truro, St Albans, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Wakefield were all officially designated as cities between 1877 and 1888. This was not without opposition from the Home Office, which dismissed St Albans as a fourth or fifth rate market town and objected to Wakefields elevation on grounds of population. In one new diocese, Southwell, a city was not created, because it was a village without a borough corporation and therefore could not petition the Queen. The diocese covered the counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and the boroughs of Derby, the link with Anglican dioceses was broken in 1889 when Birmingham successfully petitioned for city status on the grounds of its large population and history of good local government
2.
Unitary authorities of England
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Unitary authorities of England are local authorities that are responsible for the provision of all local government services within a district. They are constituted under the Local Government Act 1992, which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to allow the existence of counties that do not have multiple districts, unitary authorities do not cover all of England. Most were established during the 1990s and a further tranche were created in 2009, unitary authorities have the powers and functions that are elsewhere separately administered by councils of non-metropolitan counties and the non-metropolitan districts within them. Strictly speaking, the term does not necessarily mean a single level of government within an area. Although the term was not applied to them, county boroughs between 1889 and 1974 were effectively unitary authorities, that is, single-tier administrative units. Before 1889, local government authorities had different powers and functions, some smaller settlements also enjoyed some degree of autonomy from regular administration as boroughs or liberties. The Local Government Act 1972 created areas for local government where large towns, a review in the 1990s was initiated in order to select non-metropolitan areas where new unitary authorities could be created. The resulting structural changes were implemented between 1995 and 1998, the changes caused the ceremonial counties to be defined separately, as they had been before 1974. The review caused 46 unitary authorities to be created, a further review was initiated in 2007 and was enacted in 2009. The review caused nine unitary authorities to be created, unitary authorities combine the powers and functions that are normally delivered separately by the councils of non-metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The exceptions, which are divided into electoral divisions as in county elections, are Cornwall, County Durham. Unitary authority areas can additionally have the status of borough or city, the Council of the Isles of Scilly is a sui generis unitary authority, created in 1890 and since 1930 has held the powers, duties and liabilities of a county council. The 36 metropolitan borough councils are also the elected local government units in their areas
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
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Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
6.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
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Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
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South East England
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South East England is the most populous of the nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, as with the other regions of England, apart from Greater London, the south east has no elected government. It is the third largest region of England, with an area of 19,096 km², and is also the most populous with a population of over eight. Its proximity to London and connections to several national motorways have led to south east England becoming an economic hub and it is the location of Gatwick Airport, the UKs second-busiest airport, and its coastline along the English Channel provides numerous ferry crossings to mainland Europe. The region is known for its countryside, which includes the North Downs, the River Thames flows through the region and its basin is known as the Thames Valley. The region has many universities, the University of Oxford is ranked among the best in the world. South east England is host to sporting events, including the annual Henley Royal Regatta, Royal Ascot and the Epsom Derby. Some of the events of the 2012 Summer Olympics were held in the south east, including the rowing at Eton Dorney, the largest city in the region is Brighton & Hove. The dominant influence on the economy is neighbouring London. The highest point is Walbury Hill in Berkshire at 297 metres, until 1999, there was a south east Standard Statistical Region, which also included the counties of Bedfordshire, Greater London, Essex and Hertfordshire. The former south east Civil Defence Region covered the area as the current government office region. The South East is also used as a synonym for the home counties. The population of the region at the 2011 census was 8,634,750 making it the most populous English region, the major conurbations of the region include Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton, Portsmouth, Southampton and Reading. Settlements closer to London are part of the known as the Greater London Urban Area. The South East has the highest percentage of people born outside of Britain other than London. Estimates in 2007 state 87. 2% of people as White British,4. 8% Other White,3. 5% South Asians,1. 5% Mixed Race,1. 6% Black British,0. 7% Chinese,0. 7% Other. The area also has some seats where there is support for other parties, for example, Slough and Oxford for Labour. Buckingham, the seat of Speaker John Bercow, is also in this region, out of 83 parliamentary seats, the Conservatives hold 78
9.
Historic counties of England
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The historic counties of England were established for administration by the Normans, in most cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires established by the Anglo-Saxons and others. They ceased to be used for administration with the creation of the counties in 1889. They are alternatively known as ancient counties or traditional counties, where they are not included among the modern counties of England they are also known as former counties. Counties were used initially for the administration of justice, collection of taxes and organisation of the military and they continue to form the basis of modern local government in many parts of the country away from the main urban areas, although sometimes with considerably altered boundaries. The name of a county often gives a clue to how it was formed, either as a division took its name from a centre of administration. The majority of English counties are in the first category, with the name formed by combining the central town with the suffix -shire, for example Yorkshire. Former kingdoms, which became earldoms in the united England did not feature this formulation, so for Kent, Counties ending in the suffix -sex are also in this category and are former Saxon kingdoms. Many of these names are formed from compass directions, the third category includes counties such as Cornwall and Devon where the name corresponds to the tribes who inhabited the area. County Durham is anomalous in terms of naming and origin, not falling into any of the three categories, instead it was a diocese that was turned into the County Palatine of Durham, ruled by the Bishop of Durham. The expected form would otherwise be Durhamshire, but it was rarely used, there are customary abbreviations for many of the counties. In most cases these consist of simple truncation, usually with an s at the end signifying shire, some abbreviations are not obvious, such as Salop for Shropshire, Oxon for Oxfordshire, Hants for Hampshire and Northants for Northamptonshire. Counties were often prefixed with County of in official contexts, such as County of Kent and those counties named after central towns lost the -shire suffix, for example Yorkshire would be known as County of York. This usage was sometimes followed even where there was no town by that name, the -shire suffix was also appended for some counties, such as Devonshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, despite their origin. There is still a Duke of Devonshire, Great Britain was first divided into administrative areas by the Romans, most likely following major geographical features such as rivers. Before their arrival there were distinct tribal areas, but they were in a constant state of flux as territory was gained, the areas that would later form the English counties started to take shape soon afterwards, with the Kingdom of Kent founded by settlers around 445. Once the Kingdom of England was united as a whole in 927 it became necessary to subdivide it for convenience and to this end. The whole kingdom was divided into shires by the time of the Norman conquest, robert of Gloucester accounts for thirty-five shires and William of Malmesbury thirty-two, Henry of Huntingdon, thirty-seven. In most cases the counties or shires in medieval times were administered by a sheriff on behalf of the monarch, after the Norman conquest the sheriff was replaced and the shires became counties, or areas under the control of a count, in the French manner
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Sussex
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Sussex, from the Old English Sūþsēaxe, is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. Brighton and Hove was created as an authority in 1997. Until then, Chichester was Sussexs only city, Sussex has three main geographic sub-regions, each oriented approximately east to west. In the south-west is the fertile and densely populated coastal plain, North of this are the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, beyond which is the well-wooded Sussex Weald. The name derives from the Kingdom of Sussex, which was founded, according to legend, in 825, it was absorbed into the kingdom of Wessex and subsequently into the kingdom of England. It was the home of some of Europes earliest hominids, whose remains have been found at Boxgrove, in 1974, the Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex was replaced with one each for East and West Sussex, which became separate ceremonial counties. Sussex continues to be recognised as a territory and cultural region. It has had a police force since 1968 and its name is in common use in the media. In 2007, Sussex Day was created to celebrate the rich culture. Based on the emblem of Sussex, a blue shield with six gold martlets. In 2013, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles formally recognised and acknowledged the existence of Englands 39 historic counties. The name Sussex is derived from the Middle English Suth-sæxe, which is in turn derived from the Old English Suth-Seaxe which means of the South Saxons, the South Saxons were a Germanic tribe that settled in the region from the North German Plain during the 5th and 6th centuries. The earliest known usage of the term South Saxons is in a charter of 689 which names them and their king, Noðhelm. The monastic chronicler who wrote up the entry classifying the invasion seems to have got his dates wrong, the New Latin word Suthsexia was used for Sussex by Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in his 1645 map. Three United States counties, and a former division of Western Australia, are named after Sussex. The flag of Sussex consists of six gold martlets, or heraldic swallows, on a background, blazoned as Azure. Officially recognised by the Flag Institute on 20 May 2011, its design is based on the shield of Sussex. The first known recording of this emblem being used to represent the county was in 1611 when cartographer John Speed deployed it to represent the Kingdom of the South Saxons
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Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
12.
East Sussex
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East Sussex /ˈsʌsᵻks/ is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent to the north and east, Surrey to the north west and West Sussex to the west, archaeological remains are plentiful, especially in the upland areas. The areas position on the coast has also meant that there were invaders, including the Romans. Earlier industries have included fishing, iron-making, and the trade, all of which have declined. Sussex is traditionally sub-divided into six rapes, from the 12th century the three eastern rapes together and the three western rapes together had separate quarter sessions, with the county town of the three eastern rapes being Lewes. This situation was formalised by Parliament in 1865, and the two parts were made into administrative counties, each with distinct elected county councils in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, in East Sussex there were also three self-administered county boroughs, Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. In 1974 East Sussex was made a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county, at the same time the western boundary was altered, so that the Mid Sussex region was transferred to the county of West Sussex. In 1997, Brighton and Hove became a unitary authority, it was granted city status in 2000. East Sussex is divided into five local government districts, three are larger, rural, districts are, Lewes, Wealden, and Rother. Eastbourne and Hastings are mainly urban areas, the rural districts are further subdivided into civil parishes. To the north lie parallel valleys and ridges, the highest of which is the Weald itself, the sandstones and clays meet the sea at Hastings, the Downs, at Beachy Head. East Sussex, like most counties by the south coast, has an average total of around 1,750 hours of sunshine per year. This is much higher than the UKs average of about 1,340 hours of sunshine a year, the relief of the county reflects the geology. The chalk uplands of the South Downs occupies the coastal strip between Brighton and Eastbourne, there are two river gaps, the Rivers Ouse and Cuckmere. The Seven Sisters, where the Downs meet the sea, are the remnants of dry valleys cut into the chalk, to the east of Beachy Head lie the marshlands of the Pevensey Levels, formerly flooded by the sea but now enclosed within a deposited beach. At Bexhill the land begins to rise again where the sands and clays of the Weald meet the sea, further east are the Pett Levels, more marshland, beyond which is the estuary of the River Rother. On the far side of the estuary are the dunes of Camber Sands, the highest point of the Downs within the county is Ditchling Beacon, at 814 feet, it is termed a Marilyn. The Weald occupies the northern borderlands of the county, between the Downs and Weald is a narrow stretch of lower lying land, many of the rivers and streams occupying this area originate in the Weald
13.
Hove
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Hove /ˈhoʊv/ is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a conurbation with Brighton and some smaller towns. As part of government reform, Brighton and Hove were merged, to form the borough of Brighton. In 2000, the new borough officially attained city status, Hove is bordered by Brighton to the east and Portslade-by-Sea in the west, the distance between the boundaries being some 2.25 mi. During mid 19th-century building work near Palmeira Square, workmen levelled a substantial burial mound, a prominent feature of the landscape since 1200 BC, the 20 feet -high tumulus yielded, among other treasures, the Hove amber cup. Made of translucent red Baltic Amber and approximately the size as a regular china tea cup. There are entries for Brighton and Portslade and small settlements like Hangleton. Hove is an ancient coastal settlement with St Andrews Church being established in the 12th century, Hove remained insignificant for centuries, consisting of just a single street running north-south some 250m from the church, which by the 16th century was recorded as being in ruins. Hangleton Manor is a well-preserved 16th-century flint manor building and it is believed to have been built c.1540 for Richard Belingham, twice High Sheriff of Sussex, whose initials are carved into a fireplace, and whose coat of arms adorns a period plaster ceiling. The Manor is currently serving as a pub-restaurant and whilst it was once on open downland, however, The Ship Inn had been built at the seaward end of the street in around 1702. The census of 1801 recorded only 101 residents, by 1821, the year the Prince Regent was crowned George IV, Hove was still a small village but the population had risen to 312. The dwellings were still clustered on either side of Hove Street and this isolated location was ideal for smuggling and there was considerable illicit activity. Hove smugglers became notorious, with often being stored in the now partially repaired St. Andrews Church. Tradition has it that The Ship Inn was a rendezvous for the smugglers. In 1818 there was a battle on Hove beach between revenue men and smugglers, from which the latter emerged as the victors. As part of the drive by Parliament to combat smuggling. Also at the bottom of Hove Street was the bull-ring, at a bull-bait in 1810 the bull escaped, scattering spectators before being recaptured and dragged back to the ring. This was the last bull-bait to take place in Hove, the fertile coastal plain west of the Brighton boundary had significant deposits of brickearth and by c.1770 a brickfield had been established on the site of what would become Brunswick Square
14.
Local Government Commission for England (1992)
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The Local Government Commission for England was the body responsible for reviewing the structure of local government in England from 1992 to 2002. It was established under the Local Government Act 1992, replacing the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, the Commission, chaired by John Banham, conducted a review of all the non-metropolitan counties of England from 1993 to 1994, making various recommendations on their future. Reforms in the rest of Great Britain followed a different course, following the structural review, the Commission then reviewed electoral arrangements in English local authorities, re-warding based on population changes. It was replaced by the Boundary Committee for England in 2002, Local government was at the time organised under the Local Government Act 1972, which had been passed during Edward Heaths Conservative administration. The 1972 Act abolished county boroughs, making them districts in two-tier counties, heseltine was an enthusiast for unitary local government, and was also an early proponent of the idea of directly elected mayors, to be taken up by Tony Blairs government in the 2000s. A wide range of opinion had always favoured in principle the establishment of unitary authorities. We favour the creation in England and Wales of unitary authorities, heseltine was replaced by Michael Howard in April 1992 after the 1992 general election. The Commission, chaired by John Banham, started the reviews in July 1992, the process took longer than expected, with the Commission unable to recruit enough staff until November 1992. The first tranche, covering Avon, Cleveland, Derbyshire, County Durham, Gloucestershire, Banham had said that the Commission was expecting early wins in Cleveland, Humberside and Avon. The first recommendation, published in 1993, was the quite uncontroversial one to make Isle of Wight a unitary authority, the island had been split between South Wight and Medina boroughs, with an Isle of Wight County Council, since 1974. Three more final reports, for Cleveland, Derbyshire and Durham, were published in November 1993, in both Derbyshire and Durham, unitary authorities would be created covering the large urban areas, but the rest of the county would remain two-tier in structure. A new Secretary of State, John Selwyn Gummer, had taken over in May, Gummer sped-up the work plan and directed that all remaining reviews should start in December and be complete by the end of 1994. Gummer also issued new guidance, making it clear that wholly unitary solutions should be preferred, particularly ones smaller than existing counties and he further announced that Derbyshire and Durham would be referred back to the Commission for consideration under the new guidance. Gummer accepted the Commissions proposal to abolish Cleveland, but asked the Commission to consider Durham, the Labour Party, while remaining broadly in favour of unitary authorities, attacked the Commission for inconsistency. The revised guidance included wording as follows, In some areas the commission may wish to recommend a continuation of the existing two-tier structure. But the government expects that to be the exception, and that the result will be an increase in the number of unitary authorities in both urban and rural areas. Lancashire and Derbyshire County Councils, fearing their abolition under the new guidance, took a case to the High Court, the commission recommended that Avon and Humberside should be abolished and broken up into four unitary authorities each. It also recommended that the rump Somerset be broken up into three unitary authorities and it suggested that North Yorkshire be split into three unitary authorities – one for York, and two others to be called West Riding of Yorkshire and North Riding of Yorkshire
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Unitary authority
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Typically unitary authorities cover towns or cities which are large enough to function independently of county or other regional administration. Sometimes they consist of national sub-divisions which are distinguished from others in the country by having no lower level of administration. In Canada, each province creates its own system of local government, in certain provinces there is only one level of local government in that province, so no special term is used to describe the situation. British Columbia has only one municipality, Northern Rockies Regional Municipality. In Ontario the term single-tier municipalities is used, for a similar concept and their character varies, and while most function as cities with no upper level of government, some function as counties or regional municipalities with no lower municipal subdivisions below them. They exist as individual divisions, as well as separated municipalities. In Germany, kreisfreie Stadt is the equivalent term for a city with the competences of both the Gemeinde and the Kreis administrative level, the directly elected chief executive officer of a kreisfreie Stadt is called Oberbürgermeister. The British counties have no directly corresponding counterpart in Germany and this German system corresponds to statutory cities in Austria and in the Czech Republic. Until 1 January 2007, the municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, in New Zealand, a unitary authority is a territorial authority that also performs the functions of a regional council. There are five unitary authorities, they are, Gisborne District Council, Nelson City Council, Tasman District Council, Marlborough District Council, and Auckland Council. The Chatham Islands, located east of the South Island, have a council with its own special legislation, constituted with powers similar to those of a regional authority. In Poland, a miasto na prawach powiatu, or shortly powiat grodzki is a, typically big, city which is responsible for district administrative level. In total,65 cities in Poland have this status, a single-tier system has existed in Northern Ireland since 1973. Northern Ireland is divided into 11 districts for local government purposes and their functions include waste and recycling services, leisure and community services, building control and local economic and cultural development. They are not planning authorities, but are consulted on some planning applications, the collection of rates is handled by the Land and Property Services agency. Category, Subdivisions of Northern Ireland Local authorities in Scotland are unitary in nature, Act 1994 created a single tier of local government throughout Scotland. On 1 April 1996,32 local government areas, each with a council, replaced the previous two-tier structure, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar uses the alternative Gaelic designation Comhairle. The phrase unitary authority is not used in Scottish legislation, although the term is encountered in publications, Local authorities in Wales are unitary in nature but are described by the Local Government Act 1994 as principal councils, and their areas as principal areas
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Brighton and Hove City Council
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Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is an authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county. The local authority derives its powers and functions from the Local Government Act 1972, for the purposes of local government, Brighton and Hove is within a non-metropolitan area of England. As a unitary authority, Brighton and Hove City Council has the powers, in its capacity as a county council it is a local education authority, responsible for social services, libraries and waste disposal
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Labour Party (UK)
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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Labour later served in the coalition from 1940 to 1945. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates, Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardies roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and it had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 Khaki election came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively, only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful, Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, the judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. In their first meeting after the election the groups Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name The Labour Party formally, the Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, the Peoples History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, the governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation
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Caroline Lucas
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Caroline Patricia Lucas is a British politician, and since 2 September 2016, Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, a position she shares with Jonathan Bartley. She has been the Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election and she was re-elected in the 2015 general election with an increased majority. Born in Malvern in Worcestershire, Lucas graduated from the University of Exeter and she joined the Green Party in 1986 and held various party roles, also serving on Oxfordshire County Council from 1993 to 1997. Lucas was elected the first Leader of the Green Party in 2008 and was elected to represent the constituency of Brighton Pavilion in the 2010 general election. She stood down as party leader in 2012 to devote time to her parliamentary duties. She returned to a party leadership role in September 2016, when she was elected as Co-Leader as part of an arrangement with Jonathan Bartley. She is known as a campaigner and writer on economics, localisation, alternatives to globalisation, trade justice, animal welfare. Lucas was born in Malvern in Worcestershire, to middle-class, Conservative parents Peter and she is one of three children, her father ran a small central heating company, and sold solar panelling. Lucas was educated at Malvern Girls College, a independent school in Great Malvern. She then went to the University of Exeter, where she gained a first-class BA in English Literature, while at university, Lucas went on many trips to Greenham Common Womens Peace Camp and Molesworth peace camp when involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Lucas was an activist in CND and was involved in the Snowball Campaign against US military bases in the UK which involved the cutting of fences with the expectation of being arrested, after her doctorate, Lucas worked as a press officer for Oxfam from 1989. Later, she worked for the charity in other roles, remaining active in the Green Party, after being utterly inspired by Jonathon Porritts book Seeing Green, Lucas joined the Green Party in 1986. She recalled in 2007, I thought, right, Im going there now to the Greens main office on Clapham High Street, near where she lived. Im just going to dedicate the rest of my life to this party, soon afterwards she became the partys National Press Officer and Co-Chair. Lucas has a reputation as a party moderniser, in terms of internal slang, but I do genuinely think that has changed, a lot. Its a recognition, not that some kind of terrible compromise about putting on a tie. When the Green Party became three separate parties in 1990 for the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, she joined the Green Party of England, Lucas served as their General Election Speaker from 1991 and a Regional Council Member from 1997. Lucass first success in an election came when she gained the Green Partys second council seat in the UK on Oxfordshire County Council, which she held between 1993 and 1997
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Green Party of England and Wales
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The Green Party of England and Wales is a green, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Headquartered in London, since 2 September 2016 its Co-Leaders are Caroline Lucas, the Green Party has one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, one representative in the House of Lords, and three Members of the European Parliament. It has various councillors in UK local government and two members of the London Assembly and it also takes a progressive approach to social policies such as civil liberties, animal rights, LGBT rights and drug policy reform. The party also believes strongly in nonviolence, basic income, a living wage, the party comprises various regional divisions, including the semi-autonomous Wales Green Party. Internationally, the party is affiliated to the Global Greens and the European Green Party, experiencing centralising reforms spearheaded by the Green 2000 group in the early 1990s, the party sought to emphasise growth in local governance, doing so throughout the 1990s. In 2010, the party gained its first MP in Caroline Lucas, the Green Party of England and Wales has its origins in the PEOPLE Party, which was founded in Coventry in 1973. PEOPLE was renamed The Ecology Party in 1975, and in 1985 changed again to the Green Party, the Green Party of England and Wales is registered with the Electoral Commission as simply the Green Party. In the 1989 European Parliament elections, the Green Party of England and Wales polled 15% of the vote with 2.3 million votes, the best ever performance of a Green party in a nationwide election. This success has been attributed to both the increased respectability of environmentalism and the effects of the development boom in southern England in the late 1980s. Many party members opposed the reforms, believing that they would undermine the internal party democracy, although Green 2000 proposals were defeated at the partys 1990 conference, they were overwhelmingly carried at their 1991 conference, resulting in an internal restructuring of the party. The party fielded more candidates than it had ever done before in the 1992 general election but was deemed to have performed poorly. In 1993, the party adopted its Basis for Renewal program in an attempt to bring together conflicting factions and thus save the party from bankruptcy, the party sought to escape their reputation as an environmentalist single-issue party by placing greater emphasis on social policies. In 1993, future party leader and MP Caroline Lucas gained a seat on Oxfordshire County Council, the Greens sought to build alliances with other parties in the hope of gaining representation at the parliamentary level. In Wales, the Greens endorsed Plaid Cymru candidate Cynog Dafis in the 1992 general election, in April 1995 the Green National Executive ruled that the party should withdraw from this alliance due to ideological differences. As the Labour Party shifted to the centre under the leadership of Tony Blair and his New Labour project. At the 2001 general election they polled 0. 63% of the vote, at the 2004 European Parliamentary elections the party returned 2 MEPS the same as in 1999, overall, the Party polled 1,033,093 votes. In the 2005 general election the party gained over 1% of the vote for the first time and this growth has been attributed to the increasing public visibility of the party as well as a general growth in support for smaller parties in the UK. In September 2008, the party elected its first leader, Caroline Lucas
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Metropolitan area
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As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
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United Kingdom Census 2011
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A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011 and it was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics is the office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department formed in 2008. ONS designs, manages and runs the census in England and Wales, the first results from the 2011 census, age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 16 July 2012. The first results for Scotland, and the first UK-wide results, were published on 17 December 2012, more detailed and specialised data were published from 2013. The Registrar General John Rickman conducted the first census of Great Britains population, from 1911 onwards rapid social change, scientific breakthroughs, and major world events affected the structure of the population. The 1971 census was run by the newly created Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, in 1996 the Office for National Statistics was formed by merging the Central Statistical Office, OPCS and the statistics division of the Department of Employment, the first census it ran was in 2001. In 2008 the UK Statistics Authority was established as an independent body, a population census is a key instrument for assessing the needs of local communities. When related to data sources such as housing or agricultural censuses, or sample surveys. Most countries of the world take censuses, the United Nations recommends that countries take a census at least once every ten years, other organisations that use census data include healthcare organisations, community groups, researchers and businesses. The 2011 census for England and Wales included around 25 million households, people could complete and submit their questionnaire online, or fill it in on paper and post it back in a pre-addressed envelope. Guidance was provided online and through the census helpline, completed questionnaires were electronically tracked and field staff followed up with households that did not return a questionnaire. In these cases field staff delivered and collected questionnaires and, where needed, provided advice or assistance in completing the questionnaire, there was a legal requirement to complete the 2011 census questionnaire, under the terms of the Census Act 1920. As at 27 March 2011 everyone who had lived or intended to live in the country for three months or more was required to complete a questionnaire, failure to return a completed questionnaire could lead to a fine and criminal record. The contract is valued at £150 million, approximately one third of the total £482 million census budget, concerns were raised during contract negotiations that the US PATRIOT Act could be used to force Lockheed Martin to reveal census data to US authorities. The Cabinet Office state that Lockheed Martin will develop the systems used to process census data, neither Lockheed Martin UK nor any Lockheed Martin employee will have access to personal Census data. The Office for National Statistics stated that no census information will ever leave the UK or be seen by any American-owned company. Several groups called for a boycott of the census over the involvement of Lockheed Martin, including the Stop the War Coalition, and the Christian thinktank Ekklesia
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Other White
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The category does not comprise a single ethnic group but is instead a method of identification for white people who are not represented by other white census categories. This means that the Other White group contains a collection of people with different countries of birth, religions. Along with White British and White Irish, the category does not appear in Northern Ireland, in the 2001 UK Census, the majority of people living in England and Wales ticking the Other White ethnic group specified their ethnicity as European. Four out of five of the Other White category were born overseas, a third were born in a Western European country other than the UK, and one in seven were born in an Eastern European country. The Other White group is largely of working age, with one in ten aged over 65. This does vary according to the country of birth, with people born in the UK being disproportionately young. Polish and Italian respondents had a proportion of over 65s. A wide number of religions are represented in the Other White group, classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom
23.
Black British
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Black British are British people of Black and African origins or heritage, including those of African-Caribbean background, and may include people with mixed ancestry. Black British is one of various self-designation entries used in official UK ethnicity classifications, Black residents constituted around 3 per cent of the United Kingdoms population in 2011. The figures have increased from just under 1.15 million residents in 2001, or 2 per cent of the population, over 95% of Black British live in England, particularly in Englands larger urban areas, with over a million Black British living in Greater London alone. Historically, the term has most commonly used to refer to Black people of New Commonwealth origin. For example, Southall Black Sisters was established in 1979 to meet the needs of black women, Black was used in this inclusive political sense to mean non-white British. The official UK Census has separate self-designation entries for respondents to identify as Asian British, Black British, the 1991 UK census was the first to include a question on ethnicity. Black British was also a term for those Black people in Sierra Leone who were descendants of migrants from England and Canada and considered themselves British. They are generally the descendants of people who lived in England in the 18th century. There is evidence of the presence of people from Romanised North Africa in Roman Britain, archaeological inscriptions suggest that most of these residents were involved with the military. However, some were in the echelons of society. Analysis of a found in a Roman grave in Yorkshire indicated that it belonged to a mixed-race female. Her sarcophagus was made of stone and also contained a jet bracelet, in 2007, scientists found the rare paternal haplogroup A1 in several living British men with Yorkshire surnames. This clade is today almost exclusively found among males in West Africa, the haplogroup is thus thought to have been brought to Britain either through enlisted soldiers during Roman Britain, or via the slave trade. Some of the individuals who arrived through the slave route attained a high social rank. Historical records indicate the presence of a very small African population in Britain dating at least as far as the 12th century, early in the 16th century, servants from parts of Africa probably arrived in London with Catherine of Aragon when she travelled to England to marry Henry VIII. A black musician is among the six trumpeters depicted in the retinue of Henry VIII in the Westminster Tournament Roll. He wears the royal livery, and is mounted on horseback, the man is generally identified as the John Blanke, the blacke trumpeter who appears in the payment accounts of both Henry VIII and his father, Henry VII. A group of Africans were at the court of James IV of Scotland, both he and John Blanke were paid wages for their services
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British Chinese
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They opened restaurants on the ports. Most British Chinese are descended from people who were themselves overseas Chinese when they came to Britain, most are from former British colonies, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Mauritius. People from mainland China and Taiwan and their descendants constitute a minor proportion of the British Chinese community. Chinese communities are found in major cities including London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Sheffield, Nottingham, Belfast. The first recorded Chinese person in Britain was Shen Fu Tsong, Shen was the first person to catalogue the Chinese collection in the Bodleian Library. The King was so taken with him he had his portrait painted, the portrait of Shen hangs in the Queens collection. The first settlement of Chinese people in the United Kingdom dates from the early 19th century, because many of the Chinese settlers were originally seamen, the first settlements started in the port cities of Liverpool, Cardiff and London. In London, the Limehouse area became the site of one of the first Chinatowns established in Britain, a Chinese seaman known as John Anthony took on this lucrative role looking after Chinese sailors for the East India Shipping Company in the late 18th and early 19th century. By 1805, Anthony had amassed both the fortune and the influence to become the first Chinese man to be naturalised as a British citizen—an act so rare it actually required an Act of Parliament. British shipping companies first started employing Chinese sailors during the Napoleonic Wars to replace the British sailors who had called up to the Royal Navy. They soon discovered that they worked for less, did not drink to excess, conditions aboard ship appalled Lee Cheong, for instance, when he visited his fathers quarters, The smell. I remember the smell and the cramped conditions. I remember going down below, rows and rows of bunks, knapsacks and all sorts of junk stuffed in every nook, lots and lots of people milling around. I couldn’t think of anything worse than those sorts of conditions, with the advent of steam in the 1860s, the recruitment of Chinese seamen increased on the trading routes from the Far East. The first Chinese student to graduate from a British university was Wong Fun who received his MD in 1855 from Edinburgh, many Chinese graduates did indeed return to make a significant contribution to their country, but some stayed. The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most important celebration for Chinese and it links overseas Chinese and their descendants to their heritage, even though they live thousands of miles away from their ancestral homelands. Celebrations in London are famous for colourful parades, fireworks, the route starts in the Strand and goes along Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. Other activities include a show in Trafalgar Square with dragon and lion dances and traditional
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Arabs
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Arabs are an ethnic group inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of Arab, there are other Arab groups as well that spread in the land and existed for millennia. Before the expansion of the Caliphate, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern to the central Arabian Peninsula and Syrian Desert. Presently, Arab refers to a number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to spread of Arabs throughout the region during the early Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and this was one of the largest land empires in history. The Great Arab Revolt has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the World War I, the war signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. They are modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat, following adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the sovereignty of its member states. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora, the ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political. The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports, the total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. This makes them the second largest ethnic group after the Han Chinese. Arabs are a group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions, some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed monotheism. Today, Arabs are mainly adherents of Islam, with sizable Christian minorities, Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Maronite, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Chaldean churches. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of Gi-in-di-buu the ar-ba-a-a or Gindibu belonging to the Arab
26.
Greenwich Mean Time
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Greenwich Mean Time is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. GMT was formerly used as the civil time standard, now superseded in that function by Coordinated Universal Time. Today GMT is considered equivalent to UTC for UK civil purposes and for navigation is considered equivalent to UT1, consequently, the term GMT should not be used for precise purposes. Due to Earths uneven speed in its orbit and its axial tilt, noon GMT is rarely the exact moment the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian. This event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, noon GMT is the annual average moment of this event, which accounts for the word mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Originally, astronomers considered a GMT day to start at noon while for almost everyone else it started at midnight, to avoid confusion, the name Universal Time was introduced to denote GMT as counted from midnight. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so each night was logged under a single calendar date. Today Universal Time usually refers to UTC or UT1, in some countries Greenwich Mean Time is the legal time in the winter and the population uses the term. For an explanation of why this is, see GMT in legislation below, synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT and it was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held local mean time to be the official time. On 14 May 1880, a signed by Clerk to Justices appeared in The Times, stating that Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 813 and closed at 413 PM. This was changed later in 1880, GMT was adopted on the Isle of Man in 1883, Jersey in 1898 and Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time, hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February 1924, rendering the time ball at the observatory redundant in the process. The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular and constantly slows, on 1 January 1972, GMT was superseded as the international civil time standard by Coordinated Universal Time, maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by the centre of the instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatorys courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that line which is now the prime meridian of the world. Historically GMT has been used two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours and this contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Romans
27.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
28.
Seaside resort
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A seaside resort is a resort town or resort hotel, located on the coast. Sometimes it is also an officially accredited title, that is awarded to a town when the requirements are met. Where a beach is the focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort. The coast has always been a recreational environment, although until the mid-nineteenth century, even in Roman times, the town of Baiae, by the Tyrrhenian Sea in Italy, was a resort for those who were sufficiently prosperous. Mersea Island, in Essex, England was a holiday destination for wealthy Romans living in Colchester. The development of the beach as a leisure resort from the mid-19th century was the first manifestation of what is now the global tourist industry. The first seaside resorts were opened in the 18th century for the aristocracy, the first rolling bathing machines were introduced by 1735. In 1793, Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg, Germany was founded as the first seaside resort of the European continent and this trend was praised and artistically elevated by the new romantic ideal of the picturesque landscape, Jane Austens unfinished novel Sanditon is an example of that. The extension of this form of leisure to the middle and working class began with the development of the railways in the 1840s, in particular, the completion of a branch line to the small seaside town Blackpool from Poulton led to a sustained economic and demographic boom. The growth was intensified by the practice among the Lancashire cotton mill owners of closing the factories for an every year to service. These became known as wakes weeks, each towns mills would close for a different week, allowing Blackpool to manage a steady and reliable stream of visitors over a prolonged period in the summer. A prominent feature of the resort was the promenade and the pleasure piers, in 1863, the North Pier in Blackpool was completed, rapidly becoming a centre of attraction for elite visitors. Central Pier was completed in 1868, with a theatre and a large dance floor. Many popular beach resorts were equipped with bathing machines because even the all-covering beachwear of the period was considered immodest, by the end of the century the English coastline had over 100 large resort towns, some with populations exceeding 50,000. The development of the seaside resort abroad was stimulated by the well developed English love of the beach, the French Riviera alongside the Mediterranean had already become a popular destination for the British upper class by the end of the 18th century. In 1864, the first railway to Nice was completed, making the Riviera accessible to visitors all over Europe. By 1874, residents of foreign enclaves in Nice, most of whom were British, the coastline became renowned for attracting the royalty of Europe, including Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. Continental European attitudes towards gambling and nudity tended to be more lax than in Britain, the place was renamed Monte Carlo
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Brighton
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Brighton /ˈbraɪtən/ is a seaside resort on the south coast of England. It is part of the county of East Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman. The ancient settlement of Brighthelmstone was documented in the Domesday Book, Brighton began to attract more visitors following improved road transport to London and becoming a boarding point for boats travelling to France. The town also developed in popularity as a resort for sea bathing as a purported cure for illnesses. Brighton continued to grow as a centre of tourism following the arrival of the railways in 1841. Many of the attractions were built in the Victorian era, including the Grand Hotel, the West Pier. Brighton attracted 7.5 million day visitors in 2015/16 and 4.9 million overnight visitors, Brighton has also been called the UKs hippest city, and the happiest place to live in the UK. Brightons earliest name was Bristelmestune, recorded in the Domesday Book, although more than 40 variations have been documented, Brighthelmstone was the standard rendering between the 14th and 18th centuries. Brighton was originally a shortened form, first seen in 1660, it gradually supplanted the longer name. Brighthelmstone was the official name until 1810, though. The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, most scholars believe that it derives from Beorthelm + tūn—the homestead of Beorthelm, a common Old English name associated with villages elsewhere in England. The tūn element is common in Sussex, especially on the coast, an alternative etymology taken from the Old English words for stony valley is sometimes given but has less acceptance. Brighthelm gives its name to, among other things, a church, the town was originally split in half by the Wellesbourne, a winterbourne which was culverted and buried in the 18th century. Poet Horace Smith called it The Queen of Watering Places, which is widely used. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray referred to Doctor Brighton, calling the one of the best of Physicians. London-by-Sea is well-known, reflecting Brightons popularity with Londoners as a resort, a commuter dormitory. The Queen of Slaughtering Places, a pun on Smiths description, the mid 19th-century nickname School Town referred to the remarkable number of boarding, charity and church schools in the town at the time
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Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession
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Royal Pavilion
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The Royal Pavilion, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a retreat for George, Prince of Wales, who became the Prince Regent in 1811. It is built in the Indo-Saracenic style prevalent in India for most of the 19th century, the current appearance of the Pavilion, with its domes and minarets, is the work of architect John Nash, who extended the building starting in 1815. The Prince of Wales, who later became George IV, first visited Brighton in 1783, in addition, the Prince of Wales was advised by his physician that the seawater would be beneficial for his gout. Remote from the Royal Court in London, the Pavilion was a location for the Prince to enjoy liaisons with his long-time companion. The Prince had wished to marry her, and did so in secrecy, in 1787 the Prince commissioned the designer of Carlton House, Henry Holland, to enlarge the existing building. In 1801–02 the Pavilion was enlarged with a new dining room and conservatory, to designs of Peter Frederick Robinson, who worked in Hollands office. The Prince also purchased land surrounding the property, on which a grand riding school and stables were built in an Indian style in 1803–08 and these provided stabling for 60 horses and dwarfed the Marine Pavilion. Between 1815 and 1822 the designer John Nash redesigned and greatly extended the Pavilion, the palace is striking in the middle of Brighton, for its Indo-Islamic exterior is unique. The fanciful interior design, primarily by Frederick Crace and the decorative painter Robert Jones, was heavily influenced by both Chinese and Indian fashion. It is an example of the exoticism that was an alternative to more classicising mainstream taste in the Regency style. After the death of George IV in 1830, his successor King William IV also stayed in the Pavilion on his frequent visits to Brighton, Queen Victoria, however, disliked Brighton and the lack of privacy at the Pavilion. Brighton became accessible to Londoners by rail in 1841, increasing its popularity with the masses, in addition, the Pavilion was cramped for her growing family. Famously, Queen Victoria disliked the constant attention she attracted in Brighton, saying the people here are very indiscreet and she purchased an estate and land that was redeveloped for Osborne House in the Isle of Wight, which became the summer home of the royal family. After her last visit to Brighton in 1845, the Government planned to sell the building, the Brighton Commissioners and the Brighton Vestry successfully petitioned the Government to sell the Pavilion to the town for £53,000 in 1850 under the Brighton Improvement Act 1850. The sale helped fund furnishing of Osborne House, in 1860, the adjacent royal stables were converted to a concert hall, now known as the Brighton Dome. The town used the building as assembly rooms, many of the Pavilions original fixtures and fittings were removed on the order of the royal household at the time of the sale, most ending up either in Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. In the late 1860s, Queen Victoria returned to Brighton large quantities of unused fittings, George V and Queen Mary returned more furnishings after the First World War
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County borough
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County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, in the Republic of Ireland they remain in existence but have been renamed cities under the provisions of the Local Government Act 2001. The Local Government Act 1994 re-introduced the term for certain areas in Wales. Scotland did not have county boroughs but instead counties of cities and these were abolished on 16 May 1975. All four Scottish cities of the time — Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, there was an additional category of large burgh in the Scottish system, which were responsible for all services apart from police, education and fire. Some cities and towns were already independent counties corporate, and most were to become county boroughs, the Local Government Act 1888 as eventually passed required a population of over 50,000 except in the case of existing counties corporate. This resulted in 61 county boroughs in England and two in Wales, several exceptions were allowed, mainly for historic towns, Bath, Dudley and Oxford were all under the 50,000 limit in the 1901 census. Various new county boroughs were constituted in the decades as more boroughs reached the 50,000 minimum. The granting of county status was the subject of much disagreement between the large municipal boroughs and the county councils. County boroughs to be constituted in this era were a bag, including some towns that would continue to expand such as Bournemouth. Other towns such as Burton upon Trent and Dewsbury were not to increase in population much past 50,000, the threshold was raised to 100,000 by the Local Government Act 1958. The viability of the county borough of Merthyr Tydfil came into question in the 1930s. Due to a decline in the industries of the town, by 1932 more than half the male population was unemployed. At the same time the population of the borough was lower than when it had created in 1908. A royal commission was appointed in May 1935 to investigate whether the status of Merthyr Tydfil as a county borough should be continued. In the event county borough status was retained by the town, after the Second World War the creation of new county boroughs in England and Wales was effectively suspended, pending a local government review. The policy in the paper also ruled out the creation of new county boroughs in Middlesex owing to its special problems, the Local Government Boundary Commission was appointed on 26 October 1945, under the chairmanship of Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, delivering its report in 1947. The report envisaged the creation of 47 two-tiered new counties,21 one-tiered new counties and 63 new county boroughs, although the Commissions did not complete their work before being dissolved, a handful of new county boroughs were constituted between 1964 and 1968
United Kingdom
England
Sussex
