User:Jnestorius/County town

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A county town is the 'capital' of a county in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland.

County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its original meaning of where the county administration is based (see County halls below). In fact, many county towns are no longer part of "their" administrative county e.g. Nottingham is administered by a unitary authority entirely separate from the rest of Nottinghamshire. Many county towns are in fact cities, but all are referred to as county towns irrespective of whether city status is held or not.

Note that in Eastern Canada and the United States of America, the term county seat is usually used for the same purpose. However, in the state of Louisiana the term parish seat is used instead. In both instances, county seats or parish seats throughout the US or Eastern Canada range from large cities of 1,000,000 or more residents to towns with fewer than 200 residents and county populations of around 200.

With the creation of elected county councils in 1889 the location of administrative headquarters (County Halls) in some cases moved away from the traditional county town. Furthermore, in 1965 and 1974 there were major administrative boundary changes in England and Wales and administrative counties were replaced with new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The boundaries underwent more major alterations between 1995 and 1998 to create unitary authorities and some of the ancient counties and county towns were restored for administrative purposes. (Note: not all headquarters are or were called County Halls or Shire Halls e.g.: Cumbria County Council's HQ is called The Courts). Before 1974 many of the county halls were located in towns and cities that had the status of a county borough i.e.: a borough outside of the county council's jurisdiction.

Criteria[edit]

Several criteria were used to justify describing a particular town as the county town of a county. For many counties, a single town met all the criteria and was thus uncontroversially the county town. Where different towns met different criteria, or a single criterion was shared by several towns, there might be disagreement about which was the county town.

Possibly more here:[1]

namesake
Many counties took their name from an important town within them. In some cases, the importance of the town declined over subsequent centuries relative to others in the county.
official description
some Acts of Parliament or municipal charters defined or described a certain town as being the "county town", "shire town" or "villa comitatis" of its county. Or implicitly, if an act says "X shall be in the shire town" then X being established in Y implies that Y is the shire town.
courts and gaol
the assizes sat twice a year to try serious criminal cases. An Act of Richard II required these to be held in the "chief town" of the shire, but this was relaxed by another six years later. In most counties, a single town held both assizes; in some, summer and winter assizes were at separate towns. Counties were subdivided for assize purposes in the nineteenth century. For trying lesser offences, the quarter sessions sat four times a year and the shire court or county court more frequently still. These were initially mainly also at the assize town, but the practice of holding them at multiple venues in a county developed sooner and proceeded further than for the assizes. Chalklin 1998: "In many counties, not just smaller ones ..., the [quarter sessions] court met first in a single town".[2] Magna Carta c.18 said assizes same venue as sheriff's court.[3] Those awaiting trial were kept on remand at a gaol maintained by the county, as were those sentenced to imprisonment. The county gaol was usually in the assize town, near the courthouse, to minimise the expense of transporting prisoners and the likelihood of their escaping en route. This in turn reinforced the tendency to hold the assizes always at the same place. A county could minimise expenses by maintaining a single gaol and courthouse; on the other hand, a town already possessing a gaol or courthouse, or building one at its own expense, might attempt to attract county business.[4] It was common for the MP of a borough constituency to introduce a bill seeking to prescribe his town as a venue for the county assizes. Such a bill would be opposed by the MPs for the existing assize town, and few were passed. Some towns also had charters guaranteeing that assizes be held there, though these could be overturned by Parliament.
possibly more here.[5] Acts (General list here,[6] both specific to one place and general permissive)
  • 9 Geo.3 c.20
  • 53 Geo.3 c.131 (Ireland)
  • 7 Geo. 4. c. 63 (County Buildings Act 1826)
  • 7 Will. 4. & 1 Vict. c. 24 (County Buildings Act 1837)
  • 10 & 11 Vict. c. 28 (County Buildings Act 1847)
Bulstrode Whitelocke (Written shortly after Restoration, thus before 1695 act, on place of election) implies assizes was an instance of county court, as "last assizes at Essex" used by sheriff for election.[7]
  • Ireland prison inspectors reports, single out county gaols: 1818 1823
  • An 1852 primary school geography textbook:[8]
    That town in which stands the county jail, where offenders are imprisoned, is called the assize town, because there the assizes are held. Formerly the assize town was the best town in the county. But many assize towns have grown poor, whilst other towns in the county increased and grew rich: still the assize town, even if really poorer and less important, is called the capital or chief town of the county. In Lancashire, you see the chief town is Lancaster, though now Liverpool and Manchester, in the same county, are really ten times more important.
election
in the Unreformed House of Commons, each county formed a county constituency returning two "knights of the shire" to Westminster. The formal nomination of candidates was held at the next county court after the writ of election was issued, with a show of hands, the sheriff declaring winners, and losers entitled to call for a poll. Informal nomination often preceded polling day. Yorkshire nomination 1807-05-13 was a "general meeting of the freeholders"[9] but polling 1807-05-20 was a "special county court"[10] See "county meetings" next.) Latterly the law required a special court session exclusively for holding the election. To prevent the high sheriff from favouring one candidate by holding the election at an inconvenient place, a 1695 statute required the nomination to be held at the place where the county court had most usually met over the previous 40 years. The election could be adjourned and moved with the consent of the candidates.[citation needed] (Berkshire — n Reading & Abingdon e;[11] Wiltshire — n Devizes & Wilton e.[12]) An 1818 act made provisions similar to the 1695 act regarding election of the county's coroners, even where the coroner's district was in a different part of the county from the county court town.[13][14] A 1715 act of the Parliament of Ireland was similar to the 1695 act.
  • Some discussion of England county election in the 18thC here.[15] Stowmarket was venue for Suffolk "county meeting" on 1768-11-06 (p.101) and 1784-04-06 (p.116); In 1790 expected meeting at Stowmarket and election at Ipswich, but meeting not held; unusual and controversial but not irregular; election at Ipswich 1790-06-29 "and no nomination day"; announced for 05-31 but not held; sheriff announced no meeting "some days later" than 06-21 (pp.150–152). Also 1796–1834 here:[16] "in the shire constituency (the whole county of Suffolk apart from boroughs) the Tories were so dominant that their nominated candidates could proceed unopposed if limited to two, any sense of contest was thus transferred to the Tories' nomination meeting held at Stowmarket, a preliminary used to dissuade any third candidate from standing at the election itself."
  • A 1783 polemic against Edward Ward: "A Person, indeed, may be nominated a Candidate for a Seat in Parliament at a County Meeting; but no Person is nominated a Member at a County Meeting."[17]
William Thomas Roe gives 1818 law.[18]
  • Berkshire 1690 poll was at Reading;[19] otherwise Abingdon.
  • Wiltshire 1660 "was the only election of the [1660-90] period to be held at Devizes, to which the county court had been moved by a Cromwellian sheriff. Sir James Thynne, the first sheriff to be appointed after the Restoration, restored it to Wilton"[20] The 1690 election unsuccessful challenge to "adjournment of the county court from Wilton to Salisbury" and 1695 "unsuccessful attempt was made to insert a clause into the bill to prevent irregular proceedings at parliamentary elections. This clause was aimed at limiting the powers of the Wiltshire sheriffs to adjourn the county poll: it would have made it possible to adjourn from Wilton, at the request of a candidate, but only to Devizes".[21] July 1819 nomination meeting at Devizes.[22]
  • Sussex 1696-1720 it seems election held at Chichester or Lewes, not adjourned due to lack of agreement, but not sole-last-40-years either, rather use whichever of Chichester or Lewes was next on the county court rota.[23]
  • Yorkshire 1680 poll adjourned to 8 places.[24]
  • Surrey 1685 "The election was adjourned to the small village of Leatherhead, incapable of providing shelter and lodging for all the voters. ‘The afternoon being very tempestuous’, the Whigs, who exceeded the other party by many hundreds, as John Evelyn was assured, scattered, and in their absence the Tory candidates were declared elected."[25]
  • RPS 1703/5/24 Robert Douglas, laird of Strathenry as comissioner for the shire of Fife "found null as being made without the previous intimation at the head burgh of the shire required by law".
  • this book sv Candidate and Nomination on the Ballot Act 1872 discusses the pre-1872 situation; note also Muntz v. Sturge re 1840 election.[26]
  • 1818 general election: dissolution on June 10; canvassing for Northumberland in the weeks "before the poll opened at Appleby on June 30. Nominations and speeches from the candidates began the official proceedings, and the deputy sheriff declared for [Henry] Brougham and Colonel [Henry] Lowther after the show of hands by the crowd that customarily demonstrated popular support before the poll. ... Lord [William] Lowther demanded a poll" which closed after 4 days.[27]
  • Cheshire 1820–31:[28] "The freeholders had last polled in 1734 and the representation was generally settled by the gentry ‘among themselves’ at a pre-nomination meeting in the three-cornered room at the centrally situated Crown in Northwich, after preliminary canvassing in London, at race meetings, the assizes and in the towns."
county meetings
this encompasses election nomination meetings and probably other types as well. Berkshire 1823: "[Henry] Marsh persuaded [William Hallett] to drop his later proposal that all future county meetings should be held in Abingdon rather than Reading, because of recent refusals to allow the town hall at the latter place to be used."[29] OTOH an 1810 letter implies any "official county meeting" called by the sheriff is ipso facto a "county court".[30] Then again Irish Volunteers meeting in Cork in 1782 was a "county meeting" convened by Abraham Morris, the High Sheriff of County Cork.[31] Sheriff could refuse a petition ("requisition") to hold a county meeting, as in Kent in 1821 from supporters of queen Caroline.[32] County meetings of the men of Kent were on Penenden Heath in the 1820s. Since 1821 was refused by sheriff, it was held indoors to avoid Seditious Meetings Act 1819.[33]
  • Acts preventing seditious meetings:[34]
    • Tumultuous Petitioning Act 1661 13 Car. II c.5, only "a county meeting convened by the gentry ... could legally petition the King or either House of Parliament with more than twenty signatures in favour of political change." [p. 200]
    • Seditious Meetings Act 1795 36 Geo. III, c. 8. "followed the established practice allowing county meetings called by the Lord Lieutenant, Custos Rotularum or sheriff, or by two justices of the peace, or by the major part of the grand jury" [p. 203]
    • Flurries of meetings 1780-84 Pitt/Fox/Volunteers, 1831-2 reform -- could check county meeting locations of these
"According to R.E. Foster, county meetings were an 'extension of the ancient county court' made more controversial in the late eighteenth century by ‘radicals’ such as Henry Brougham and Cobbett. They were convened, on the request of freeholders by the High Sheriff. [R.E. Foster, Leadership, Politics and Government in the County of Hampshire during the Lord Lieutenancy of the First Duke of Wellington, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Southampton (1986), 264]"[35]
[in 1780][36] "The usual procedure was for a sufficient number of men of substance to sign a requisition to the sheriff, asking him to call a meeting. Frequently the sheriff, who was a royal appointee, would decline the request. Thereupon in some counties the lord lieutenant would call the meeting. In others, the signatories to the requisition when rebuffed would issue a summons of their own, trusting local consequence to underwrite what was strictly an irregularity. Some meetings originated in a request by the Grand Jury at the assizes or by the assembled justices at quarter sessions. Two of the later meetings were called in the name of the 'yeomen and freeholders' in default of action by the nobility and gentry, the 100 requisitioners in each case making up in numbers what they lacked in individual weight. The underlying thought is that be called out only by a respectable accumulation of property, just as it is held that none but freeholders ought to attend and vote."
Other sources:[37][38][39]
historyofparliamentonline 1690-1715 constituencies-and-elections:
In nearly every county it was customary to hold pre-election meetings of the justices of the peace and other substantial landowners, generally, though not always, at assizes or quarter sessions, in order to settle in advance who would be the candidates. ... The formality of the process also differed. ... Often the two parties held separate meetings. As party conflict escalated, the general meeting became a rarer phenomenon
Many counties had meetings in 1783–4 giving "addresses of thanks to the King for his dismissal of Fox and North"; one at Castle Yard at York on March 25.[40] Also many meetings in connection with the Great Reform Act.

In Scotland 1800-1850: "County Meeting = a meeting of Heritors to decide on administrative matters within a county, Normally held biannually, although pro re nata meetings could also be called on the request of three or more heritors. It was normally held in the head Burgh of the county, that is Cromarty for Cromartyshire (before amalgamation of roads in 1805), Dingwall or Tain for Ross-shire, or Dornoch for Sutherlandshire".[41]

county records
The county records, such as court proceedings and public accounts, were usually kept in the county court house. They were the responsibility of the custos rotulorum de jure and the Clerk of the Peace de facto. An 1800 parliamentary report shows the situation varied between (English) counties: in some all records were kept in or near the shire hall in a publicly owned building; in some they were in the custody of the clerk (or deputy clerk) at the residence or place of business, privately owned or rented by them, which might be in the county town or elsewhere; in some counties, older records were stowed away in a public building and current records kept in the clerk's property.[42] includes locations of:
  • Duchies Lancaster & Cornwall[43]
  • Assize Circuits (all in Inns of Court except Northern Circuit in York)[44]
  • Great Sessions of Wales[45]
  • Durham & Lancaster Palatine[46]
  • Devon & Cornwall Stannary Courts[47]
  • English (1-40) & Welsh (41-52) Clerks of the Peace[48]
  • Middlesex & Yorkshire County Registries[49]
  • Scottish Sheriff Courts records. (Definitely in town in shire)[50]
county council
The county councils established under the Local Government Act 1888 in England and Wales, the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 and the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 were required to hold regular meetings, and quickly came to use a single existing or purpose-built building for this. Often this was in the town previously considered the "county town", but many councils sooner or later moved to a larger or more central town or city. It was a moot point whether the title "county town" had moved along with the council.
weights and measures
Weights and Measures Acts prescribed an authorised copy of the standard weights and measures to be kept in each county, for comparison with those used by merchants at markets there, to facilitate prosecutions for overcharging at Court of Piepowders. These weights were generally kept in the county town (Eng and Irl).
Scottish act of 1618 esablished firlot of Linlithgow, French troy stone of Lanark, ell of Edinburgh, and pint vessel of Stirling, which respective burgh will "have the giving out of the same to the rest of the burghs and all others of his majesty's lieges". No mention of shire's head burgh having custody for rest of shire. (All but stone have 4 national copies, 2 each in Edinburh and Dumbarton castles.) However "all firlots to be used in markets both to burgh and land be burnt and sealed either with the marks and seals of Linlithgow in manner foresaid or with the burning iron of the head burgh of the shire wherein the said markets are holders". (No similar provision for other units.)
military
from Tudor times, the militia of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom was organised in a county by its Lord Lieutenant. Later the county regiment. Was there any function specific to the county town, e.g. for annual mustering, manoeuvres, barracks, officers, administration, magazine, armoury? In SE England at time of Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, there was a "mustering town" for each county division, and one for the county as a whole.[51]
James's militia had been created by three statutes of 1661-3.[13 Car. II, stat. I, cap. 6; 14 Car. II, cap. 3; 15 Car. II, cap. 4] In each county a lord lieutenant and his deputies ... arranged county musters (once a year for four days) and company musters (up to four a year, for two days).[52] A 1752 Treatise concerning the Militia by "C.S." proposes "Seventhly, The head quarters of the county-regiments to be in or near the county town of each county",[53] which suggests this was not then a requirement. "seize the county magazine" The new county Fencibles of 1794[54] differed from earlier regiments in actually being recruited from the eponymous county [p. 8], and in consequence were not stationed in the county town: "Northumberland there was a great fear of arming a large body of the people unless they were sent out of the county" [p. 6] "The Cambridgeshire Fencible Cavalry was not to be stationed at Cambridge because the men were natives and would immediately engage in Town and Gown riots. The Norfolk Cavalry was not to go to Norwich because the men came from there and could not be relied on to suppress disturbances." [p. 9]
See also: Category:Military units and formations of the United Kingdom by county
Domesday Book
recorded details of [some? many? all?] county towns at the head of their respective county. Well what wiki "Domesday Book" article says is: "Each county's list opened with the king's demesne lands ... Holdings of Bishops followed, then of the abbeys and religious houses, then of lay tenants-in-chief and lastly the king's serjeants (servientes), and Saxon thegns who had survived the Conquest, all in hierarchical order. In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section". Only match in BHO is for Bucks [1] [2]
residence of sheriff and/or lord lieutenant
seat of eponymous noble
sports
some sources below mention racing; perhaps also intercounty cricket?
authority
stated explicitly "X is the county town of Y" or implicitly

Quarter sessions[edit]

Cox, John Charles (1890). Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals: As Illustrated by the Records of the Quarter Sessions of the County of Derby, from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Victoria. Vol. I. London: Bemrose. p. 7. ISBN 9780598448279.

The place of holding Quarter Sessions in counties is not determined by any statute law; but the Justices who issue the precept to summon a Quarter Session may, in their option, specify any place within the ambit of the jurisdiction for which it is summoned. In the majority of counties the habit seems to have obtained, from the times of the earliest records of these courts, of holding these sessions solely at the county town. In other counties, such as Berkshire, where the principal towns are situated near the confines, the practice has been to hold nearly every session at a different town. In others, again, where large populations lie at some distance from the chief town of the shire, each session is, by adjournment, held occasionally at two or more of the principal towns.


"[The county court in the 12C] met once a month, usually I suppose, in the county town, in the shire-hall where there was one ; but it did not always meet in the county town or in any town at all."[55]

Where a county was subdivided for quarter sessions and no other purpose it seems these were simply called "divisions". Not necessarily the case that an undivided counties held all quarter sessions in county town.

  • Maybe Conversely, different divisions might hold sessions in the same town.
    • yes implied by 1847 Parl Gaz Lincolshire[56]
    • but no by "within the ambit of the jurisdiction for which it is summoned" in Talfourd quote below

But at least one might say that the location of sessions in divided counties is not evidence of county-town status, except where county was later divided for other purposes (e.g. Yorkshire ridings for assizes).

Tudor Surrey:[57]

Ideally quarter sessions should have met four times a year for one to three days. But the pipe rolls suggest that the number of session days per year varied wildly in Surrey, whereas in Hampshire sessions met very regularly in the period prior to the Reformation, almost always eight days a year. The sloppy reporting of Surrey attendance on the pipe rolls also indicates local administrative confusion. Neither was there a fixed county town in Surrey as there was in many counties. Quarter sessions assizes travelled all over Surrey, meeting at various times in Southwark, Guildford, Kingston, Croydon, Reigate, and Dorking in the early Tudor period. 19 Thus while institutional order In a county like Hampshire reflected political stability, in Surrey institutional irregularities and the relative unimportance of the quorum indicated an extremely unstable political situation.

1603–1625: "In some counties Quarter Sessions were all held at the county town, in others [? not so]".[58]

Stuart: "Even in Essex, a county where the judicial system was centralized, on average only 25 percent of the working group of JPs attended each Chelmsford quarter-sessions"[59] → implies that theer were some counties, such as Essex, where it was possible to speak of the county's quarter-sessions town.

Peter Taylor says of 18C Lancashire:[60]

by an ancient order of the Duchy Court of Lancaster, the sessions were begun at Lancaster on the Tuesday in each of the aforementioned weeks and then adjourned successively to Preston to be held on the following Thursday, then to Ormskirk (at Midsummer and Michaelmas) or Wigan (at Epiphany and Easter) on the next Monday, and finally to Manchester on the Thursday after. They were held for one day only at each location. To cope with excessive business and in times of county-wide emergency, further adjournments could be held.

1813 act 53 Geo. III c.113 (ss.2 and 7) mentions the "treasurer of any county, or division of a county, named in the Schedule"; Schedule lists all 39 English and 13 Welsh+Monmouth counties, with divisions in some:

  • E & W: dorset essex kent northants somerset sussex
  • other: notts (N & S) westm (East & Kendal "wards" — only two of the four wards) yorks (3 "ridings") lincs (3 "divisions") cambs ("Cambridge County" & "Isle of Ely and Town of Cambridge") suff (Beccles, Bury, Ipswich, Woodbridge)

West Riding Yorkshire 1823:[61]

THE TIMES AND PLACES Of holding the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, with the usual Adjournments.
Easter Quarter Sessions are held at Pontefract only, and always begin on Monday after Low Sunday, or the first Sunday after Easter.
Midsummer Quarter Sessions always begin at Skipton on Tuesday in the first whole week after the 7th of July; Bradford on Thursday after; and Rotherham on the Wednesday following.
Michaelmas Quarter Sessions always begin at Knaresborough on Tuesday in the first whole week after the 11th of October; Leeds on Thursday after; and Sheffield on the Wednesday following.
Christmas Quarter Sessions always begin at Wetherby, on Tuesday n the first whole week after the Epiphany; Wakefield on Thursday after and Doncaster on the Wednesday following.
[...] After each of the above-mentioned Quarter Sessions, there is an Adjournment to Wakefield, for the purpose of inspecting the Prison, Ac. which is generally held within a month or six weeks from the last Adjournment.

9 Geo.4 c.43 "An Act for the better Regulation of Divisions in the several Counties of England and Wales." 15 July 1828:

WHEREAS by divers Acts now in force it is enacted, that certain Matters and Things, in the same respectively mentioned, shall be transacted and determined within the Divisions or Limits within which the same shall arise, or the Parties therein concerned inhabit or exercise their Trade or Calling, and by or before One, Two, or more Justices of the Peace dwelling within or near to, or usually acting within, such Divisions or Limits respectively
And Whereas the Boundaries of such Divisions or Limits are in some Instances uncertain, and in many have become inconvenient to the Inhabitants within the same, from the Change or Increase of Trade or Population, or from other Causes
And Whereas Doubts have arisen as to the Authority by which such Divisions or Limits may from time to time be constituted, defined, or altered; and it is expedient that such Doubts should be removed, and due Provision made for the constituting, defining, and regulating from time to time such Divisions or Limits, as the Convenience of the Inhabitants within the same may require
Be it therefore enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same,
That at any Time or Times after the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions next following the passing of this Act, it shall be lawful
for any Two or more Justices of the Peace for any County, Riding, or Division in England or Wales, having a separate Commission of the Peace, to transmit to the Clerk of the Peace a Statement in Writing, signed by such Justices, of the Parishes, Tithings, Townships, and Places within the same, which, in the Opinion of such Justices, would form together a convenient and a proper Division within and for which Special Sessions should thenceforward be held; or of any Parishes, Tithings, Townships, or Places, which, in the Opinion of such Justices, ought to be annexed. for the same Purposes, to any other Division in the said County than those or that of which at the Time of making such Statement they form Part;
and that every such Statement shall, among other Things, set forth within what existing Divisions or Division, Limits or Limit, the several Parishes, Tithings, Townships, and Places enumerated in the same, are situated or deemed to be; and also whether One or more and what existing Divisions or Limits will be altered by such proposed new Divisions, or by the Change of an Place or Places from one Division to another; and also the Names of such Justices of the Peace as at the Date of such Statement are usually resident or acting as such within the Boundaries of such proposed new Division.

Thomas Talfourd 1841 says quarter sessions by no means always at county town:[62]

Place of holding County Sessions.]—The place of holding quarter sessions in counties, divisions, ridings, or liberties, not being boroughs affected by the municipal corporation act, 5 & 6 W. IV. c. 76, is not determined by any statute law; but the justices who issue the precept to summon a quarter sessions may, in their discretion, name any place within the ambit of the jurisdiction for which it is summoned as that where it is to be holden, and the parties bound to appear at such sessions, by recognizance or by their official situations, will be bound to attend at such place (n).
Dalton states the wilfully holding of a sessions on the confines of a county to be punishable; but as in many counties, for instance, Berkshire, the principal towns are so situated, it is usual to hold nearly every session at a different town in the county; and in others, as Sussex, Suffolk, &c, where large collections of population lie at a distance from the county-town, each sessions is held, by adjournment, at two or more of the principal towns within it successively, thus avoiding as far as possible the carrying prisoners from place to place.

Webbs:[63]

The inefficiency resulting from the practical division of the county was sometimes mitigated by an understanding that all questions of general county policy, and especially matters of county finance, should be dealt with only at the Easter, or at some other Quarter Sessions, held always at the county town.

Authorities[edit]

Quotes[edit]

Shire-moot mounds e.g.

[1700–1820] "There were no county towns in Scotland similar to those of south of the"[65]

County castles[edit]

Discussion for 13C including full list and map, distinguishing "county castles" from "other sheriffs castles"; note some border castles served two counties under same sheriff.[66] "The Assize of Clarendon of 1166 required the sheriff to have his own gaol in a royal castle or borough. Without exception the shrieval castles became the county gaols." A bit on "Shire Houses" as separate development.

James Dallaway 1815:[67]

Between Chichester and the town of Lewes contentions have anciently existed with respect to precedence, and as to which was to be considered as the county In the 11th of Henry the Seventh, an act passed for establishing a standard of weights and measures in every county town, when it was fixed at Lewes. remonstrance probably took place; for in the 19th of the same reign, it was ordained by similar authority, that the shire-court, or sheriff’s turn, should be held alternately at Chichester and Lewes. The assizes have been occasionally held at East Grinstead; and for some years past at Horsham, alternately with Lewes; but the elections of knights of the shire have been made at either of the provincial capitals, according to the option and appointment of the sheriff. In 1695, Francis Wyatt, Esq., sheriff, after having given notice, that the county court should be held at Chichester, suddenly adjourned it to Lewes." The poll at two contested elections, in 1734 and in 1774, was taken at Chichester; and at a third, in 1807, at Lewes. In 1358, when the Staple was removed out of Flanders by King Edward the Third, and he settled it, with all its rights and immunities, upon seven cities or towns in England, Bishop Stratford procured that Chichester should be one of them." In 1492, John Stanney was master of the Staple, for the king.

Dicsussion of "county castles": royal castles where sheriff was constable, and where county court and assize tended to be held in C13-15.[68] Two sources say there were 25 such.[68][69] Rickard lists:

A list from his 1999 PhD thesis, Vol.1 Appendix 19 (table of royal castles; including those wih "Type" of "County") has only 15 (Camb, Carl, Exe, Colch, Winch, Hereford, Norw, Nthh, Newc, Nott, Oxf, Bridgnorth, Shrew, Old S, York).[70]

Musson mentions these castles not in Rickard's list above (maybe check elsewhere in Rickard): Bedford, Exeter, Lancaster, Lincoln, Oakham, Peveril, Richmond, Scarborough, Windsor, Worcester; and also for London Newgate Prison and Tower of London, and Wells episcopal palace.[69]

However:[71]

In many towns, it is true, these castles represented royal power rather than that of the feudal magnates. They were often the headquarters of the country sheriffs. But sheriffs were not impersonal public servants. Recruited from the lesser aristocracy, they were sometimes the direct nominees of feudal potentates (as at Worcester) rather than of the crown. Sometimes the potentates excluded them from the castle in the county town. The sheriff of the jointly administered counties of Warwick and Leicester had his headquarters in Kenilworth Castle. The castles at Warwick and Leicester were occupied respectively (from the late thirteenth century) by the earls of Warwick and earls (later dukes) of Lancaster.

Early[edit]

Parliament Rolls Index

s.v. "Assizes"
  • For Mx taken at J of KB 99b
  • Cornw complain times inconvenient 308b
  • Repair Assize Hall Warwick 374a
  • Js sessions for assizes as well as gaol delivery 334b
  • Derbs petition Ass at Derby not Salow; King wlil charge his Js to hold at "the most conven pl in C" 95b
  • Js will hold As at the Principal town in the C where the Shire Cs are holden 139a IV490b
  • Keeping As at Shire T ref to Consid of Chancellor w adv Js non.obs.6Ric2 247b
  • In Guildhall London usu bef Sheriff and Cor/DepCor: allow no Cor/DepCor
  • Justices assigned by commission to takes assizes enjoined strictly hold in chief town of every county 642b
s.v "County"
  • County Courts in Cornwall, where to be held, 296b
  • Burgesses of Ivelchester pray the C Cts be held there as usual and not at Somerton 307b
  • Men of Sussex complain that no place is assigned for the County Cts 379a
  • Justices shall hold their sessions in every county 4 times yearly 234b
  • Standard weights and measures prayed to be sent into each county 260b
  • Men of Warwick pray that the Gaol being ruinous be repaired 371b
  • Bristol C of itself 320b (incl pt Glocs 315a)
  • Sessions of Justices of Assizes &c shall be held in County towns 139a, IV390b
  • Justices of the Peace shall imprison none but in the Common Gaol 540a
  • Justices assigned by commission to takes assizes enjoined strictly hold in chief town of every county 642b
  • City of Lincoln made C of itself 74b
  • who shall attend the C meeting when assessment is made to pay knights of the shire 110b
  • County Gaol of Sussex shall be at Lewes 388a

Time of Hen.III/Edw.I/Edw.II: "An Ordinance for Bakers, Brewers, and for other Victuallers; and for Ells, Bushels, and Forestallers"

Cap.8:Bushels, Gallons, and Ells shall be signed with the King's Seal, and he that buyeth or selleth with other shall be amerced.
  • But I think the above 1762 rendering of "communitatis ville" as "Shire Town" is inaccurate: more like "town corporation"? Aha, "commonalty".

Richard II (Summary of preamble to 3 & 4 Will.IV c.71 1833):

  • 6 Rich. 2, c. 5: the Justices assigned to take assizes and deliver the gaol should hold their sessions in the principal and chief towns of every of the counties where the shire courts of the same county should be holden
  • 11 Rich. 2, c. 11 the [previous] statute was in part prejudicial and grievous to the people of divers counties in England, was provided that the Chancellor of England for the time being should have power thereof to make and provide remedy, Advice of the Justices from time to time when need should be, notwithstanding the said statute

NED, definition

shire-town, the chief town of a shire, a county-town, see County18b; also transf.

first cite for "shire town" is 1459: Rolls of Parliament V. 368/1

Make open Proclamation in the Shire Toune of the same Shire or Shires.

Info on county gaols:[72]

Musson 2007:[73]

13th/14th century eyre/assizes usually met in castles. "It is also important to remember that justice dispensed under the auspices of the royal courts was only part of the experience of justice in the localities. At shire level the county court continued to meet monthly (usually in the ‘shire house’ or ‘hall of pleas’ in the county town, though some shires had two or three possible venues)". References:
  • R. C. Palmer, The County Courts of Medieval England, 1150-1350 (Princeton, NJ, 1982), pp. 5-16, 312 (Appendix II);
    Most counties had a single venue, usually a royal borough; many of the rest had the annual great session in a hallowed location. The venue was usually by tradition but could be set by royal mandate. [pp 14-15]
    List in App II =pp.312-313], major exceptions described in Ch.1 pp.5-16; minor exceptions in footnotes
  • M. H. Mills, ‘The Medieval Shire House (Domus Vicecomitis)’, in Studies Presented to Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. C. Davies (London, 1957), pp. 251-74

Warren:

The way that the realm was managed made no provision for towns except in the special case of 'boroughs'. Each shire had at least one, and usually only one borough which developed into the 'county town'.[74] ... In origin the shire was a military district focused on a well-defended place (the shire burgh or 'borough', from which the shire itself usually took its name) which served both as a defensive bastion and as the mustering centre for the shire's military forces.[75]

Early:[76]

There is early evidence in some counties of assizes sitting in the county court and of that court being housed in the castle of the county town, in which castle, as often as not, the gaol was also housed.

At the Peasants' Revolt 1381, John Ball was in Kent county gaol in Maidstone.[77]

Act 11 Henry VII c.4 (1495):[78]

that the said knights, citizens, and burgesses, to whom the said weights and measures shall be delivered, as is aforesaid, surely convey, or cause the same to be conveyed on this side the feast of Easter next coming, by the said citizens to their cities, and by the said knights unto such borough, or town corporate, or market town within the shire for which they be elected, as is specified and contained in a schedule unto this present bill annexed, there to remain for ever in the keeping of the mayor, bailiff or other head officer for the time being, of the same city, borough, or town, as the King's standard of weight and measure.
  • Schedule:
County/etc Location of weights
Westmorl. The Town of Appleby.
Northumb. The Town of Newcastle.
Cumber. The City of Carlisle.
Lanc. The Town of Lancaster.
Ebor. The City of York.
Lincoln The City of Lincoln.
Derb. The Town of Derby.
Notting. The Town of Nottingham.
Leic. The Town of Leicester.
Warw. The City of Coventry.
Rotyl. The Town of Uppingham.
North. The Town of Northampton.
Bcdf. The Town of Bedford.
Buck. The Town of Buckingham.
Cantebr. The Town of Cambridge.
Hunt. The Town of Huntingdon.
Norf. The City of Norwich.
Suff. The Town of S. Edmond's-bury.
Essex The Town of Chelmtsord.
Hertf. The Town of Hertford.
Mid. In Westminster.
Kent The Town of Maidstone.
Surr. The Town of Guilford.
Sussex The Town of Lewes.
Oxon The Town of Oxenford.
Berk. The Town of Reading.
Salop The Town of Shrewsbury.
Staff The Town of Stafford.
Hereford The City of Hereford.
Glouc. The Town of Gloucester.
Wigorn. The City of Worcester.
Wilts. The City of New Salisbury.
South. The City of Wincttester.
Somers. The Town of lie/tester.
Dart. The Town of Dorchester.
Devon The City of Excester.
Cornub. The Town of Lustudiel.
London The same City.
Bristol The.same Town.
Quinque Portus The Castle of Dover.
Civitat Covent. The same City.
Southampton The same Town.
Civitas Cestr. The same Town.

Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542:[79]

1535
  • 3 ... the said Town of Monmouth (hall be named accepted reputed used had and taken Head and Shire-town of the said County or Shire of Monmouth ; and that the Sheriffs County or Shire-co'irt of and.for the said Shire and County of Monmouth, (hall he holden and kept one Time at the said Town of Mon, mouth, and the next Time at the Town of Newport, in the same County or Shire, and so to be kept in the same two Towns altirnfs vicibus, and according to the Laws of this Realm of England for ever, and in none other Places
  • ... the said Town of Brecknock shall be named accepted reputed used had and taken Head and Shire-town of the said Shire or County of Brecknock; and that the Shire-court or County of and for the said Shire or County of Brecknock fliall be holden and kept in the said Town of Brecknock.
  • ... the said Town of New Radnor (hall be named accepted reputed used had and taken Head and Shire-town of the sai4 County or Shire of Radnor; and that the Shire-court or County of and for the said County or Shire of Radnor, (hall be holden and kept County Court one Time at the said Town of New Radnor, and the next Time at of Radn°rthe Town of \Rothergoiuy 'J, in the same County or Shire, and so ' [Pr'Jl'"'> to be kept in the said two Towns alternis vicibus for ever, and in 3* , |5 A ,' none other Place
  • ... the said Town of Mounlgomery shall be named accepted reputed used had and taken Head and Shire-town of the said County of Mounlgomery; and that the County or Shire-court of and for the said County or Shire of Mountgomery, shall be hold^n and kept the first Time at the said Town of Mountgomery, and the next Time at the Town of Maghenkth, in the same Shire or County, and so to be kept in the same two Towns altern'ts •eicibus for ever, and in none other Place.
  • ... the said Town of Denbigh shall be named accepted reputed used had and taken Head and Shire-town of the County or Shire of Denbigh ; and that the County or Shire-court of and for the said County or Shire of Denbigh, shall be hoWen and kept the first Time at the said Town of Denbigh, and the next Time at the Town of Wrixhatn in the said Shire or County, and so to be kept in the same two Towns alternis vicibus for ever, and in none other Place
  • 29 ... hall be chosen and elected to the same Parliaments ... for every Borough being a Shire'-town within the slid Country or Dominion of Wales, except the Shire-town of the foresaid County of Mcrco* neth, one Burgess
1542
  • 71 That every of the said Sheriffs shall have a Gaol for Prisoners within some convenient Placei;i^ the Castles of the Shire-towns where he is Sheriff, or in such other convenient Place, as by the said President Council and Justices, or three of them, whereof the said President to be one, shall be appointed
  • 118 Countyof ÆaaW shall from henceforth be holden one 1 lme « i? Hi8i(., 5,jVfw Radnor, and one other Time at Preston, alternis vietbus, and i *•never from henceforth to be kept or holden at Rother Gowey ; any former Act or other Thing to the contrary thereof not-withstanding.

At the other end of the scale were the shire towns. [fn.3: The terms 'shire town' or 'county town' came into use by Henry VIII's reign (cf. LP viii, p. 241, referring to Dorchester in 1535), but were unusual before the end of the century.] In each of the five large counties of the south-east of England there were two rival shire towns: Winchester and Southamptionin Hampshire, Chichester and Lewes in Sussex, Canterbury and Maidstone in Kent, Colchester and Chelmsford in Essex, and Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich in Suffolk.[80]

1554

  • Glastonbury
    "The Bill, that Glaston may be the Shire Town in Somerset"[81]
  • Carmarthen
    Mr. Davys moveth against a Sheriff in Wales, excluding One elected a Member of this House. - That he would not suffer them to have any Burgess at all. - No Burgess in Wales, till 27 H. VIII. then 12 Knights, 12 Burgesses. Every Burgess to be of the Shire-towns; but every of the other to have Voice in the Election, and to be contributory. - " Et de burgo vocat' l' Shire-town," the Form of the Writ. - The Shire-town not a Name of a Town, but the Denotation of it, as the principal Town of the Shire. -
    For Carmarthen, Mr. Thomas elected, being Recorder there. - Nullus burgus vocat' Shire-town, unde burgus eligi possit. - Whereby may turn out all the Burgesses for Wales. -
    Moveth for a Committing; and that the Clerks of the Crown and Petty Bag may attend : And ordered accordingly : And the Committees for Privileges, to meet, to that Purpose, To-morrow in the Afternoon

31 October 1562: "The Queen to the Sheriff of —. / He shall levy [blank] soldiers for service in Normandy The conductors will give each soldier four shillings for coat money, and a halfpenny for every mile from the shire town to the coast."[82]

Assizes, 1558–1714 (excluding Home Circuit):[83]

Home Circuit: Hitchin, Bishop's Stortford, Braintree, Colchester, St Albans, Hertford, Chelmsford, Witham, Brentwood, Southwark, Greenwich, Kingston upon Thames, Dartford, Gravesend, Croydon, Rochester, Dorking, Guildford, Reigate, East Grinstead, Horsham, Lewes, Canterbury, Maidstone, Sevenoaks

An Act for the further regulating Elections of Members to serve in Parliament and for the preventing irregular Proceedings of Sheriffs and other Officers in the electing and returning such Members, 1695:[84]

upon every Election to bee made of any Knight or Knights of the Shire to serve in this present or any future Parliament the Sheriffe of the County where such Election shall bee made shall hold his County Court for the same Election att the most publick and usuall Place of Election within the said County and where the same has most usually beene for Fourty Yeares last past and shall there proceed to Election att the next County Court

which suggests there are two County Courts involved, which would account for the cases where nomination and election are in different places as aligning with counties where assizes alternate. But the next section:

att the same place of Election proceed to the polling all the Freeholders then and there present and shall not adjourne the County Court then and there held to any other Towne or Place within the same County without the consent of the Candidates nor shall by any unnecessary Adjournment in the same Place of Election protract or delay the Election but shall duely and orderly proceed in the takeing of the said Poll from Day to Day and Tyme to Tyme without any further or other Adjournment without the consent of the Candidates untill all the Freeholders then and there present shall bee polled and noe longer

Also relevant is section 9:

the Sheriffe of the County of Southampton or his Deputy att the Request of one or more of the Candidates for Election of a Knight or Knights for that County shall adjourne the Poll from Winchester after every Freeholder then and there present is polled to Newport in the Isle of Wight for the ease of the Inhabitants of the said Island

Suffolk 1640s: Suffolk lieutenant's ad hoc meetings before Civil War were usually at Stowmarket, where musters held (also Bury and Ipswich for east and west divisions). Other SE counties (Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Sussex) also had "two sister 'capitals'".[85]

The 1653 Instrument of Government specified for the First Protectorate Parliament a total of 400 MPs for England and Wales (separate instruments for Ireland and Scotland). This excluded most rotten boroughs and included a few other towns; wiki Richard Cromwell article mentions "the system under the Instrument of Government whereby representation of rotten boroughs was cut in favour of county towns"; that may be (1) a misunderstanding of "county town", or (2) indicate that a borough of borderline rotten size might be spared on the grounds that it was a county town, or (3) indicate that some new enfranchisements were justified on the basis that the place was a county town. A related question: how many county-towns were already enfranchised? Stephen K. Roberts says "more representation was given to counties than had been customary and the franchise withdrawn from the more egregiously decayed boroughs" and only mentions Durham Leeds and Halifax as new boroughs.[86]

Porritt, The unreformed House of commons; parliamentary representation before 1832:[87]

  • Pr3nine, with good reason, dates Parliamentary elections by municipal corporations to the period when the final stages of borough elections took place not within the boroughs themselves, but at the shire towns where the county court was held at which knights of the shire were chosen. It was because Parliamentary elections in those days occurred with such frequency, because votes were not yet of value, because no one was yet canvassing for them, and no one was yet willing to bestow advantages on voters who would exercise the franchise in their favour, that the municipal corporations fell into the habit of electing the members to the House of Commons with little or no consideration for the townspeople to whom they were responsible for the administration of municipal government.
  • Two Acts of Parliament, passed with an interval of only a few years, were necessary to the establishment of the representative system in Wales on the basis on which it stood in 1832. The first, passed in 1535-86 1 27 Henry VIII, c. 26. enacted that one knight should be returned for every county, and one burgess for each county town except Merioneth. All that is stated in this Act as to the electoral franchise is contained in a clause which reads "and the election to be in like manner, form and order, as knights and burgesses of the Parliament be elected and chosen in other shires of this realm." With this extension to Wales of the form and order of Parliamentary elections in England, an extension which inter alia established the English forty-shilling franchise in the counties of Wales, there was a provision that Welsh members should be paid, as members in England were paid. The Act directed that the knights' fees should be Levied and gathered of the commons of the shire that they be elected in," and that the fees of burgesses "be levied and gathered as well of the boroughs and shire towns, as they be burgesses of, as of all other boroughs" within the shire. In the English constituencies in 1535 wages for members of the House of Commons had long ceased to be generally paid. Their payrment at this time was the exception. In 1543-44 there came the second Act dealing with the Parliamentary representation of Wales. [Act 34 and 35 Henry VIII c.26] It was practically an Act for the extension of the borough franchise in Wales, or for making assured the more extensive franchise which had been only inferentially established by the clause in the Act of 1535-36 making towns, other than the shire towns, liable to contribute to the wages of the representatives of the shire towns. This second Act for Wales is noteworthy in two respects. It was passed evidently in response to a popular demand for a definite extension to the contributory towns of the right to elect, given by the Act of 1535-36 specifically only to the shire towns.
    • The 1535 Act creates four counties (Brecknockshire Radnorshire Montgomeryshire Denbighshire) and specifies the shire-towns; it takes the other shire-towns for granted.
  • There were many contests between the shire towns and their contributory towns. ... There was a typical, and for the shire town, a successful contest of this nature in 1728, when Montgomery freed itself, for Parliamentary election purposes, from its contributory towns of Llanidloes, Welshpoole, and Llanvylling. ... the determination of the committee was "that the right of election is in the burgesses of the said shire town only,"
  • Beaumaris was the only borough in Wales in which a corporation secured to itself and long exercised the exclusive right of electing a member to the House of Commons. Newborough was the only contributory borough of Beaumaris, the shire town of Anglesea. Early in the reign of Edward VI, when the holding of the assize was transferred from Newborough to Beaumaris by Act of Parliament. Newborough was discharged by the court of grand sessions from contributing to the payment of wages of the burgess of Beaumaris. With its freedom from this liability there lapsed the right of the inhabitants of Newborough, so specifically secured to all the contributory towns by the Act of 1543-44, to "be lawfully admonished by proclamation or otherwise" by the mayor of the shire town, "to come and give their elections for the electing of a burgess" for Beaumaris. Freed from any electoral connection with Newborough, Beaumaris became thus a self-contained borough for Parliamentary purposes. ... the question as to which should be the shire town had already in the reign of Edward VI for fifty years been a subject of fierce contention between the two boroughs.
  • In 1774 it was suggested that county voters should be polled in districts, instead of at the county town, in order to save expense, chiefly the non-official expense of conveying freeholders to the poll

Daniel Defoe, A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, 1725:[88]

came out of Cornwall by passing the River Tamar at Launceston, the last, or rather, the first, Town in the County, the Town shewing little else, ,but Marks of its Antiquity j for great Part of it is so old, as it may, in a manner, pass for an old, ragged, decay'd Place, in general. It stands at a Distance, almost Two Miles from the River, over which, there is a very good Bridge; the Town is eminent, however, for being, as we call it, the County Town, where the Assizes are always kept.
From hence, we proceeded on the Road towards Oxford but first turned to the right to visit Aylesbury. This is the Principal Market Town in the County of Bucks; tho' Buckingham a much Inferior Place, is call'd the County Town: Here also is held the Election for Members of Parliament, or Knights of the Shire for the County, and County Goal, and the Assizes.
St. Albans is the Capital Town, tho' not the County Town of Hertsordjbire, it has a great Corn" Market, and is famous for its antient Church, built on the Ruins, or part of the Ruins of the most famous Abbey of Verulam ; the Greatness of which, is to be judg'd by the old Walls, which one sees for a Mile before we come to Town.
Entring Stafford-shire we quitted the said Streetway, a little to the left, to see Stafford the County Town, and the most considerable except Litchfield in the County.
Hence we pafs'd to Huntington, the County, Town, otherwise not considerable it is full of very good Inns, is a strong Pals upon the Ouse, and in the late Times of Rebellion it was esteemed so by both Parties.

County court houses built 1650-1765:[89] Devon Exeter, Suffolk, Bury St Edmonds and Ipswich, Essex Chelmsford, Sussex Lewes, Dorset Dorchester, etc.

[90]

p.87 In Cornwall the old county centres of Launceston, Lostwithiel and Bodmin lost plausibility as they and their eastern inland hinterlands fell in wealth and population behind the western and coastal regions, leading eventually to Truro's emergence as the county town (unofficially at least) by the late eighteenth century. ... In [Cornwall, Somerset, and Dorset] the meetings of quarter sessions and assizes were rotated around the major towns in various parts of the county and no town was able to practise the 'piling of function upon function' Alan Dyer describes for the Midlands.
p.102: Administration was not of itself of great economic significance, but it was increasingly concentrated on the county town: in the sixteenth century we note that the assizes were often share between several towns in many of the Midland shires, but were monopolised by the county town in the seventeenth, a process which led to the construction of impressive gaols and shire halls in the eighteenth century; aided by the buildings of institutions such as infirmaries, this process made the concept of a capital town much more of a physical reality. Such developments made these towns the natural focus of the couty gentry as visitors and residents...and around this nucleus there grew an impressive nucleus of social and cultural activity.
p.349: Scotland had nothing like the administrative centre of the county town with its quarter sessions, but the royal burghs with their own Convention had a group identity in national politics neer matched by the English boroughs.

Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765:[91]

But elections of knights of the shire must be proceeded to by the sheriffs themselves in person, at the next county court that shall happen after the delivery of the writ. The county court is a court held every month or oftener by the sheriff, intended to try little causes not exceeding the value of forty shillings, in what part of the county he pleases to appoint for that purpose: but for the election of knights of the shire, it must be held at the most usual place. If the county court falls upon the day of delivering the writ, or within six days after, the sheriff may adjourn the court and election to some other convenient time, not longer than sixteen days, nor shorter than ten; but he cannot alter the place, without the consent of all the candidates; and in all such cases ten days public notice must be given of the time and place of the election.

William Newton, The history and antiquities of Maidstone, 1741:[92]

On account of its Situation, and Conveniency for receiving and entertaining great Numbers of People, it has generally been reputed the fittest Place for Publick Meetings of the County; and, upon that account, it has been called the County-Town, or Shire-Town of Kent. In the Time of Queen Elizabeth, the Assizes are said to have been held oftner in this Town than in all the Places of the County besides, except Rochester; and till a few Years past they were almost constantly held at Maidstone; but are now gone to Rochester again

Daniel Defoe in 1724: "St. Albans is the Capital Town, tho' not the County Town of Hertfordshire." (Capital meaning "greatest" rather than "seat of government".)[93]

Authorities[edit]

'The same institutions, it is believed, were carried into Anglo-Saxon England, where the “Folk-moot” became the “Shire moot.” The “shire” simply constituted a large regional district in which one or another of the Anglo-Saxon confederations' armies had settled permanently'[94]

Four Wessex shires C9-11:[95]

The shire centres had been key to the creation of the shires to which they gave their names. ... The places chosen as shire centres in central Wessex reflected priorities of the late seventh or early eighth centuries when the shires were formed. ... In the Middle Saxon period different functions and facilities were not necessarily concentrated within one centre as they might be in more urbanised societies. ... Somerset had the most dispersed pattern of centralised functions of the four shires we have been considering, but certain similar elements can be found in Dorset as well.

"While routine commissions to hold assizes were concentrated in fewer places than had been the case in the thirteenth century, a proliferation of venues for gaol deliveries and sessions of the peace occurred in most counties during the fourteenth century."[69]

Steve Tittler on Tudor county government; mentions sheriffs, sessions, militia.[96]

Everitt has a chapter (called "seminal" by Elliott[97]) on the [1660-1800] "rise of the county town as the focus or heart of the county community, or in other words as a kind of regional capital.":[98]

  • III county and 'country' ("pays"~region) met in county town
  • IV
    • 1 not centres of staple trade or industrial towns;
    • 2 entrepot
    • 3 professional and entrepreneurial centre;
    • 4 leisured life of the gentry assizes and horse-races;
    • 5 cultural centre;
  • V centre of craftsmanship
  • VI birds of a feather

"County Government: Wiltshire c.1530–c.1660"[99]

Summary of Everitt ('country' a natural region, 'county' an essentially human creation) and responses to him: "challenged in recent years, with particular doubts being raised about the extent to which shire towns 'drew on a specific and rigorously defined county community'".[100]

Clark gives "county town" as a 1500-1700 type label and elaborates.[101]

Webbs 1689–1835:

  • In the counties of Suffolk and Sussex, each nowadays legally divided into two, but having during the eighteenth century but one Gustos Eotulorum and Lord-Lieutenant, one Clerk of the Peace, one High Sheriff, one Commission of the Peace, and, so far as the law knew, one County Eate, we find the shire divided, " time out of mind," into four separate parts, each having its own group of Justices and its own Court of Quarter Sessions, each trying its own prisoners, repairing its own bridges, maintaining its own House of Correction, levying its own differential rates on its own parishes, making its own orders as to pensions and poor relief, and only occasionally recognising the supremacy of the Courts held at Ipswich and Bury, or at Chichester and Lewes, as representing the two halves into which these counties were, each of them, eventually legally divided; and still less that at Ipswich or Lewes as representing either county as a whole[102]
  • Only in the case of West Suffolk, as the old Liberty of St. Edmund, do we understand that there was a separate Grand Jury[103]
  • The Island [Islan of Wight] maintained its own bridges and House of Correction, and had entirely distinct Poor Law and highway administrations ... It became in effect, extra-legally, a separate administrative county.[104]
  • In 1787 the Lancashire Quarter Sessions declared ... that an annual General Sessions should be held at "Preston, a central place in the county, ... for the special purpose of transacting" all business relating to the county at large. ... The rival claims of Lancaster were strenuously upheld. ... For a couple of years the Lancashire Justices continued to quarrel furiously over the point. Those who belonged to the Hundred of Lonsdale stood out in flat rebellion against all the rest of the county. They refused to meet anywhere but Lancaster. ... Finally, the rest of the county found itself driven to apply to Parliament for a Local Act establishiag an Annual General Sessions at Preston, at which alone certain county business could be transacted.[105]

19C "Usually the county town was the Assize town but not always. Kent Assizes, for example, were held at Maidstone not Canterbury. .. further variation .. two or even three towns in rotation [fn Surrey Guildford alternately with Croydon in Summer and Kingston in Spring".[106]

Beverley[edit]

Beverley as county town of East Riding: Assizes, Assembly Rooms 1763, racecourse 1769, East Riding Militia; meetings of gentry incl. commissions for the land tax, the turnpike, and poor relief.[107]

Stafford[edit]

"In the sixteenth century it temporarily lost the assizes to Wolverhampton, and later it was supplanted as a social centre by Lichfield."[108]

Lancaster[edit]

1867 Cmd 3777 p.4 REPORT of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the existence of Corrupt Practices at the last Election for Members to serve in Parliament for the Borough of Lancaster, together with the Minutes of Evidence; Evidence of Thomas Swainson, town clerk for the borough. [119:] ... Then in the 36th of Edward the 3rd, in the year of 1363, the King, "at the request of his beloved son John, Duke of Lancaster " (John of Gaunt) granted to the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of the town that "all pleas and sessions of what justices soever in the county of Lancaster appointed be kept in the said town of Lancaster as in the principal town of the said county and not elsewhere in the said county for ever." That is the language of the charter. 120. (Mr. Barslow.) Is that the origin of the Court of Common Pleas at Lancaster ? — It is the origin of the Assizes being held here, until within the last twenty years, when part was taken to Liverpool and part to Manchester. You know that the Assizes for hundreds of years were held only here for the entire county of Lancaster under this very charter. Then in the 12th of Richard the 2nd, in 1389, the King granted and confirmed the former charters for the fine of forty shillings, and "because the town had been often burnt:" I need not say more about that, that is a matter of history which is well known. Then in the 10th of Henry the 6th there was a grant of recognizances and statute merchant, &c, in addition to the confirmation of previous charters. Then in the 3rd and 4th of Philip and Mary, 1556, there is a decree of the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster under the duchy seal, that all general sessions of assizes and gaol delivery and the four quarter sessions be holdcn at the town of Lancaster and not elsewhere in the county. Then in the 15th Charles the 2nd, 1663, freedom is granted to the burgesses from being put in assizes or on juries out of their own town. In the 36th of Charles the 2nd, 1684, (which appears to have been the first charter which established the constitution which came down to 1819,) there is granted "that all pleas, &c, in the County Court shall be kept for ever in the town as in our county town of the said county, and not elsewhere in the said county ;" that is under the great seal and seal of the duchy.

Cornwall[edit]

Encyclopaedia metropolitana: Launceston dates its privileges as a Borough from the reign of Henry III. It was long the principal residence of the Earls of Cornwall, and till 1 George I. the Assizes, by a charter of Richard II., were to be held in it.

Magna Britannia: volume 3: Cornwall (1814), pp. III-X The assizes for the county were invariably held at Launceston from an early period, till the time of Richard, King of the Romans, who, having built a palace at Lostwithiel, transferred the assizes thither; but on a petition from the men of Launceston, he consented, on the payment of a fine, that they should be held as had been accustomed; and it so continued (except during the ravages of the plague, when the assizes were held at Saltash), till the reign of George I. In the year 1715, an act of parliament was passed [1 George I c.45], by which it was enacted, that after the 20th of May 1716, the assizes should not be confined to the town of Launceston. In consequence of this act, they were held alternately at Launceston and Bodmin, till the year 1727, after which they were held solely at Launceston as before, till the summer assizes in the year 1738, when the alternate arrangement, which has ever since continued, was again adopted (fn. 13) ; the spring assizes being held at Launceston, the summer at Bodmin.

The quarter sessions were formerly held at Bodmin and Truro, the sessions beginning always at Bodmin on the Tuesday, and being adjourned to Truro on the Friday. About the year 1580, as we find from Carew's survey, this arrangement was altered, and the whole sessions held at each place alternately; but this having been found liable to inconveniences, before the publication of his work (1602), it had been arranged, that the sessions should, "interchangeably, one quarter begin at Bodmin and end at Truro, and the next begin at Truro and end at Bodmin." The Michaelmas sessions are now held wholly at Bodmin, the Easter sessions at Truro, and the Epiphany and Mid-summer sessions at Lostwithiel. This arrangement has subsisted many years.

The county-gaol was formerly at Launceston, being the old prison within the precincts of the castle. It is described by Dr. Borlase (fn. 14) as a narrow wretched place for human creatures to be confined in, all supposed innocent till convicted; but here, he says, the "innocent and the guilty must be contented to remain till their fate is determined, or a better one is built." This has since been happily accomplished, a commodious and well-arranged county gaol, upon Mr. Howard's system, from a plan of the late Sir John Call, having been erected at Bodmin, under the powers of an act passed in 1778. It was completed in 1780.

1834:[109]

Launceston, defended by its Acropolis, and important as a frontier town, probably remained in all respects the capital of Cornwall so long as that little state retained its separate existence. Lestwithiel afterwards became the residence of its nominal Earls, took from Launceston the sheriffs' court, and acquired the technical appellation of the county town. The assizes, however, continued at Launceston, and the quarter sessions were opened there ; and then, for the convenience of the western population, adjourned to Truro. Here also was the only county gaol; till at last the inconvenience and expense became so great, that about the year 1780, a new, extensive, and commodious gaol, with every recent improvement, was constructed at Bodmin, where the summer assizes had been removed under the authority of an act of Parliament 1st Geo. I. c. 45, rendered necessary by the charter of King Richard II. But Launceston, only two miles from the boundary of Cornwall, and so remote from the mining districts, which comprehend the great masses of population and of litigible property, as to render a journey there in one day impossible, has been long considered wholly unfitted for the holding of any court having jurisdiction thoughout the county ; while on the other hand judges and counsel feared to extend their winter's progress over the bad roads and hills of Cornwall. The roads are now improved, and the hills are avoided; and in this year (1834) an order has been made for holding both assizes in future at the town adjacent to the prison, nearly in the centre of the county, and where an increased inducement will be afforded for providing the accommodation requisite on such occasions.

The story of the Shire[edit]

The story of the shire, being the lore, history and evolution of English county institutions (1921):

Frontispiece "Map of counties, county towns, etc."

Chapter 7 "COUNTY NOMENCLATURE"

The names of the great bulk of the English shires, as might be expected from the way these divisions were formed, were borrowed from the county-towns, from the burghal centres around which they grew up as administrative areas. In these cases, which constitute our third group, where the shire name is obtained from that of the dominating town within its borders, it will be necessary to get at the meaning and derivation of the names of the respective towns.
Alfred the Great and his successors had built a number of " burhs," which it was the duty of the neighbouring free-holders to garrison and maintain. These strongholds, though sometimes called castles, were really stockaded mounds ; it was with their aid that an end had at last been put to the Danish forays ; and these places became the centres for the new divisions or administrative shires in the Midlands.

p.97: "a new peer in choosing a title could not be permitted, if below the rank of Earl ("Count") to adopt the name of a county or a county town.".

Chapter 17 "THE ASSIZES AND THE COUNTY TOWNS"

The capital of any country or province is the town which is the seat of the Government. Similarly the county-town is the one in which the Assizes for the county are usually held, and in which the other branches of local self-government for the shire area are carried on. ...
[In 1834] it was provided that assizes might be held at more than one place in the same county in Yorkshire, for instance, in each of the three Ridings. [Some time after 1863] the public convenience was sought by making it possible to discharge the civil and criminal business of Surrey through judges and juries trying issues in Middlesex and London. By the Winter Assizes Act 1876 certain counties were united to facilitate the more speedy trial of prisoners. ...

The Northern Circuit covers the counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the County Palatine of Lancaster ; the towns visited by the judges being Carlisle, Appleby, Lancaster, Manchester, and Liverpool.

The North-Eastern Circuit covers Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire ; the towns visited being Newcastle, Durham, York and Leeds.

The Midland Circuit covers the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, Leicester, Northants, Rutland, Bucks and Beds. ; the assizes being held at Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, War- wick, Leicester, Northampton, Oakham, Aylesbury, and Bedford and Birmingham.

The Oxford Circuit covers the counties of Oxon, Berks, Worcester, Stafford, Salop, Hereford, Mon- mouth, and Gloucester ; the towns visited by the judges being Oxford, Reading, Worcester, Stafford, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Monmouth, and Gloucester.

The Western Circuit takes in the counties of Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall ; the towns visited including Winchester, Salisbury (or Devizes), Dorchester, Exeter, Taunton, Bodmin and Bristol.

The South-Eastern Circuit includes the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Hants, Cambs, Herts, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Surrey ; the towns at which Assizes are held include Norwich, Ipswich, Hunt- ingdon, Cambridge, Hertford, Chelmsford, Maid- stone, Lewes, and Guildford.

In the North Wales Circuit are included the assize towns of Chester, Mold for Flintshire, Ruthin for Denbighshire, Carnarvon for the county of that name, Beaumaris for Anglesey, Welshpool for Montgomeryshire, and Dolgelly for Merionethshire.

In the South Wales Circuit the towns visited are Haverfordwest for Pembrokeshire, Lampeter for Cardiganshire, Carmarthen for the county of that name, Brecon for Brecknockshire, Presteign for Radnorshire, and Cardiff or Swansea in Glamorganshire.

London and Middlesex, as previously mentioned, are not comprised in any circuit, but courts for the trial of issues by a jury are held before judges of the High Court four times every year at what are called the London and Middlesex sittings. In 1834 the Central Criminal Court was instituted to deal with London, Middlesex, and certain of the metropolitan suburbs which reached into Essex, Surrey, and Kent. The county-town of Middlesex was Brentford so far as the holding of assizes and the county election in olden times could make it so. The Essex Assizes were at one time holden at Brentwood. In Northumberland the Assizes were formerly held at Alnwick till the large centre of population claimed the privilege. In Lancashire Preston claims to be of more importance, and certainly more central than the old county-town ; it is the headquarters of the county police and the meeting place of the County Council.

In recent years new towns which have become great centres of population as Leeds and Birmingham have been created Assize-towns ; so that in one geographical county there may now be found more than one town enjoying that privilege which was once the special prerogative and characteristic of a county-town.

Although all the circuits now get three assizes a year, every assize town is not visited that number of times density of population, and the demands for judicial attention necessarily arising therefrom, giving a new assize town like Leeds the full number, while an ancient county-town situated in a sparsely populated district, as Appleby is, has but two assizes each year. Formerly there might be four Assizes a year.

Since 1878 the Crown has been empowered to deprive any county of the privilege of having assizes held within it. To some of the smaller county towns which very largely depend upon the Assizes for their importance, the loss of this ancient privilege would mean a very substantial depreciation in their property values ; little wonder, therefore, that the prospect of such deprivation fills them with dismay.

In Kent, Assizes were formerly held at East Greenwich, Dartford, Milton-next - Gravesend, Sevenoaks, Rochester, Maidstone, and Canterbury. In the time of Richard II. the assizes were held most frequently at Canterbury, and it was one of the grievances of Jack Cade and his followers that they had to travel from the farthest parts of West Kent into the east to attend the sessions of the peace ' ' causing men some five days' journey, and they desired for the better administration of justice it should be divided into two parts."

Maidstone, once but of little repute, became the assize town after the Restoration. Canterbury (a county in itself) is, of course, the ecclesiastical capital of Kent, and Maidstone is now the county town. The cathedral city prefers that Maidstone should enjoy the privilege of carrying out executions.

The other corner county, Cornwall, also hesitates between its cathedral town, Truro, and Bodmin with its gaol, as to which is really the county town. Launceston was the ancient capital of the Duchy the office of Constable of Launceston Castle is still in existence.

pp.251-2:

Most County Councils at their formation avoided the fees —which amount to upwards of £76— demanded by the College of Heralds for a legal grant of arms, and with praiseworthy economy, supplied themselves with bogus armorial bearings. The approved method of arriving at the desired result seems to have been to appropriate, with some slight modification, the arms of the county-town.
Thus we find Cumberland using a travesty of the arms of Carlisle, Westmoreland an imitation of the Appleby arms, and Devonshire a perversion of those of Exeter. The same unscrupulous methods of appropriation were followed by Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and many others. Berkshire just altered the seal of Reading, and Bedfordshire the seal of Bedford, while that of Dorset County Council was suggested by the seal of Melcome Regis. Lancashire worked up the arms of the town and duchy of Lancaster ; Cheshire altered to its own taste the arms of the earldom of Chester. Hampshire seized upon the arms of Southampton, and just by way of variety reversed the colours.

Shire buildings[edit]

English Counties and Public Building: 1650–1830:

  • Courthouses built 1650-1765.[110]
  • Courthouses built 1800-30.[111]
  • Gaols and bridewells 1765-80.[112]
  • County gaols, 1781-1800.[113]
  • County gaols, 1801-30.[114]

Houses of correction seem to be smaller and more scattered per county.[115][116]

According to Mulcahy,[117] Graham[118] has lists 119 buildings up to Manchester Assize Courts (1860s) which held assizes; of which 38 were known as shire or county halls, 13 as castles, and 22 as courthouses; and Graham also states 26 castles held assizes: Appleby, Cambridge, Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Guildford, Hereford,Hertford, Lancaster, Launceston, Leicester, Lincoln, Newcastle, Northamption, Norwich, Oakham, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Taunton, Winchester, Wisbech, York.

28 Geo III c.52 s.2 copy of controverted election petition must be on door of "County Hall or Town Hall or Parish Church nearest" — define "County Hall" ?

Buckingham v Aylesbury 1748[edit]

Act 1748 21 Geo.II c14 An Act for holding the Summer Assizes for the County of Buckingham at the County Town of Buckingham:

WHEREAS for many Years past it hath been usual in the Administration of Justice to his Majesty's Subjects, residing at the different Ends of the County of Buckingham, which is of a great Length, to appoint the Summer Assizes at the County Town of Buckingham, and the Winter Assizes at Aylesbury: And whereas this Usage was unnecessarily broken in upon in the last Summer: And whereas it will tend to preserve the Peace and Quiet of the County to fix the Distribution of Justice in its usual Channel, within the said County : Be it therefore enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That from and after the first Day of June one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight, all the Commissions of Assize and Nisi prius, and all General Commissions of Oycr and Terminer, and all Commissions of General Gaol Delivery, which shall be appointed to be held and executed to be held at for the said County next after the Term of Holy Trinity shall be held and executed in each Year at and in the said Town of Buckingham, and at no other Place within the said County of Buckingham; any Law, Statute, Usage, Matter or Thing to the contrary notwithstanding.

House of Commons debates:

Richard Grenville: Sir; the holding the assizes at proper places in each county has always been deemed an affair worthy the consideration of parliament, and therefore in the 6th year of the reign of Richard 2, a general regulation was made by act of parliament by which it was directed, that justices of assize and gaol-delivery should hold their sessions in the chief towns of every county where the shire courts there use to be holden; but as this express and particular direction was soon found to be inconvenient, therefore by a new law passed in the 11 tli year of the same reign, it was enacted, that the chancellor by the advice of the justices, should have power to order it otherwise,' if need should be,' notwithstanding the said statute. With regard to the county of Buckingham, Sir, the town of that name was always, till the reign of Henry 8, deemed to be the county-town: the shire courts were held there, and the county-gaol was at the castle in that town

William Stanhope: Another reason for appointing the assizes at Buckingham, is its being the county-town; a reason only fit to captivate the imagination of an antiquarian. If a county-town was always the most conveniently situated for the concerns of the whole county, or always the best accommodated with every thing necessary for holding the assizes, it might carry a plausibility of argument; but Buckingham having been proved, by the united voice of the gentlemen of the county, to be destitute of these advantages, and Aylesbury appearing to be characterised by them, the arguments summed up in the magic term county-town seem to have no more weight than two words without a definite meaning can give them

William Pitt the elder: if he disputes its being the county-town, give me leave to tell him, that there is an act of parliament in the reign of Henry 7, by which it is enacted, That the standard of weights and measures shall be kept here; and till that time, you will give me leave to say, that it was without dispute the countytown, and that most of the county business was done there. Upon this fair state of the case, it will appear that Buckingham's being the county-town is no magic term, no appellation grounded merely upon its giving name to the county, but arising from an indisputable matter of fact

Thomas Potter, MP for Aylesbury:[119]

The county town is a term or expression, Sir, which our lawyers will tell you, has no determinate signification, either by common law or by statute. By custom, that is generally called the county town, where the county courts, the quarter sessions, and the elections for the county usually are held; but no town in any county has a right by common law, statute, or prescription, to have the county courts, quarter sessions, or elections held there and thei^ only, a very few excepted. Ai to the court called the sheriff's turn, it is, as we all know, an ambulatory court, which is held at the usual place in every hundred within the county; and as to the county or shire court, the sheriff may hold it at any place, where he is not directed otherwise by express statute, which is not the case of the county of Bucks, nor of any other in England that I can now recollect,-except the county of Sussex, where the shire court is directed by statute to be held alternately at Lewes and Chichester; and the county of Northumberland, where it is directed by statute to be always held at Alnwick: as to the former of which I must remark, that the law for that purpose was passed the 19th of Henry 7, when Empson and Dudley bore the chief sway at court, and by that House of Commons who were so obsequious as to chuse Dudley for their Speaker; so we may suppose, that either the king or his favourites had money for getting this law passed; and as to the latter, it was passed in the beginning of the reign of Edward 6, when Dudley, then earl of Warwick, the son of the Dudley I have just mentioned, had great sway at court, who probably got this act passed to justify what had been done by his father, or perhaps with some other private view of his own, as he got himself afterwards created duke of Northumberland, and even contrived and in come part executed a plot for settling the crown of England upon a branch of his family, for which he deservedly suffered in the next following reign.
From hence it is plain, Sir, that except in the counties of Sussex and Northumberland, no town in England can from the county courts claim being the county town ; and as to the laws tor settling the county courts in these two counties, they were past by such a parliament, and at such a time, as can give no great weight to the precedent. Then as to the quarter sessions, except in the county of Anglesea, they are to be held at any town within the county, or at several different towns, according as the justices shall at their discretion appoint; consequently, no town can from thence claim being the county town: and as to the election of members of parliament for each respective county, the sheriff, who could appoint the county or shire court to be held where he pleased, could certainly have appointed the election at any town within the county where he thought fit, without any restraint or limitation, till the passing of the act in the 7th and 8th of king William, for regulating elections of members to serve in parliament. By that act indeed, it is provided, That the county courts for the election of knights of the shire shall be holden where the same had most usually been for 40 years then last past; and therefore from that time the sheriffs have been obliged to hold the county courts for the purpose of elections at a certain town in each of those counties, where the elections had for 40 yean preceding that act been held at any one particular town in the county. But if any town in any county is from thence to claim the honour or privilege of being die county town, let us see, Sir, how this matter will stand with regard to the county of Bucks. In that county it neither has, nor can be denied, that the election of knights of the shire had been almost always held at Aylesbury for above 4O years before the said act of the 7th and 8th of king William; and as the county courts and the quarter sessions have likewise been usually held at the same place, ever since the reign of Henry 8, surely if any town in that county has a title to call itself the county town, k is the town of Aylesbury.
Now, Sir, with regard to the place for holding the assizes in each county, let in see how the case stands by the laws and customs of this kingdom. By an old, and I may say, an antiquated law passed in the 6th year of Richard 2, that is, about 365 years ago, the justices of assize and gaol delivery are directed to hold their scssionc in the chief towns of every county, where the shire courts there use to be holden; but this law was soon altered by an act of the llth of the game king, which recites, that because it was found inconvenient to the subject, that justices of assize should be bound to hold their sessions where the shire courts use to be held, therefore it is enacted, that the chancellor, by the advice of the justices, shall have power to order it otherwise, as need shall be, notwithstanding the said statute.
These, Sir, are the only general lawi we have relating to the places where the assizes are to be holden in each county; and from these it is evident, that the justices never were confined to any one town in any county; for by the first of these two acts they were confined only to those towns where the shire courts had usually been holden; but as the shire courts in every county were, as I have shewn, held sometimes in one town, and sometimes in another, at the discretion of the sheriff, therefore, even by this law, they were confined only to one or other of those towns in each county where the shire courts had usually been held; and even this confinement was taken off by the last of these two acts, and the chancellor, with the advice of the justices, was empowered, when he thought it necessary, to order the assizes to be held at any town he pleased to appoint within the county, even though no shire court had ever been held at that town.
Thus, Sir, by the general law as it now stands, for there are two exceptions by particular laws, no town in any county has a right to have the assizes held there; and if any one town in any county has ft better right than another, surely it is that town where the county courts, the quarter sessions, and the elections for the knights of the shire are usually held. If so, then with regard to the county of Bucks, the town of Aylesbury has a better right to the assizes than any other in that county.

George Grenville: same debate If it had been a new and unprecedented thing to fix the holding of the assizes at any one or more particular towns in a county, this step might have been thought extraordinary; but we have many instances of patents for fixing the assizes at particular places: upon our Journals we have many instances of Bills brought in for this purpose; and in our statute book we have one law for fixing the assizes for the county of Cumberland at Carlisle; we had another for fixing the assizes for Staffordshire at the county town of Stafford: we have a third for fixing the county courts, and consequently, I think, the assizes for Sussex alternately one year at Lewes, and the other at Chichester, which is in the remotest corner of that county: and we have a fourth for fixing the county courts, and consequently, I should think, the assizes for Northumberland at Alnwick. There is therefore, Sir, nothing extraordinary or unprecedented in the Bill now before us

Robert Nugent: Who, I pray, are the best judges, what is the most convenient place for holding the assizes for any county? Surely the gentlemen of the county itself; and the majority of the gentlemen of that county have long, and often, manifested their opinion, that Aylesbury is the most convenient place, by fixing the county courts, and quarter sessions there and by building a county gaol and shire hall there at their own expense. Nay, the parliament has already determined, that Aylesbury is the most proper place: for wherever the elections of knights of the *hire are to be held, that is certainly the most convenient place for holding the assizes; and the parliament has already declared, and enacted, that the sheriff shall hold his county court for such election, at the most public and usual place of the county, where the same hath most usually been for forty years last past, which, with respect to the county of Bucks, is at the town of Aylesbury. ... The reasonableness, and indeed the necessity of leaving it in the power of the chancellor, with the advice of the justices, to appoint what places in each county the next assizes shall be held at, has been so clearly stated by a learned and worthy gentleman in this debate, that I have no occasion to enlarge upon the subject. The very act itself, by which this power was restored and established, shews us, that this necessity was not discovered by speculation but by experience: and the long continuance of that act, the few alterations that have been made with respect to it, and the averseness that all former parliaments have shewn towards making any exceptions, are a farther proof of the utility of this general law. It is now about 360 years since that law was passed, yet in all that time there has been but one exception made, which was made at such a time as can give no great weight to the precedent, and the apparent reasons were much stronger than in the present case; for in Cumberland, the city of Carlisle is the most centrical, and indeed the only place in the county that could sufficiently accommodate the judges and their attendants; even with respect to the county courts, there are very few instances in England where they are fixed at any particular places by act of parliament; and in Northumberland and Sussex, which I believe are the only two, the assizes are not commonly, much less constantly, held at those towns where the shire courts have been fixed by act of parliament. The parliament, Sir, has not only been careful not to encroach upon this power which has been so long, and which has by experience been found to be so usefully lodged in the judges, but it has likewise been careful to extend it, of which we had an instance in the first year of the late king. Till that time, the town of Launceston in Cornwall, by virtue of an ancient charter with a non obstante, pretended to a privilege of having the assizes for the county always held at that town, which is situated at the hithermost corner of the county. As this was inconvenient, the county petitioned to have the summer assizes fixed at Bodmyn, as a place more commodious, and nearer to the heart of the county. What did the parliament do upon that occasion? They demolished the pretended privilege of Launceston; but they would not fix either of the assizes at any particular place; on the contrary, they passed an act empowering the chancellor, with the advice of the justices of assize, to appoint from time to time a convenient place in that county for holding the assizes, in the same manner as for any other county in England.

Alnwick[edit]

1548 2&3 E.6. c.25. s.3 "That the sheriff of Northumberland from thenceforth shall keep the county court of that shire in the town or castle of Alnewick and in none other place; any latter use lately begun and brought in to the contrary notwithstanding." (Repealed by Sheriffs Act 1887 50&51 Vict c.55 s.39+Sched.3

1824:[120] Alnwick being the county town of Northumberland, the county court is held here every month. All persons in the county may sue and be sued in this court. It is not a court of record, and may hold pleas of debt or damages under the value of forty shillings. It may also hold pleas of many real actions and of all personal actions to any amount by virtue of a special writ called a justicies. This court is incident to the jurisdiction of the sheriff, but the judicial authority is delegated to his deputy the under sheriff. The attorneys plead, and the verdicts are returned by a jury of the freeholders of the county, who may be considered the real judges.

The quarter sessions for the county are held at Alnwick once a year, about Michaelmas; and, for the convenience of the county, they are held once in Newcastle, once at Morpeth, and once at Hexham. The members of parliament and the coroners for the county of Northumberland are elected at Alnwick. It is also the head quarters of the Northumberland Light Infantry Regiment of Militia, the staff of which is stationed here during the time of peace, and the regiment assembles at it for embodyment.

In other respects, Alnwick enjoys none of the other distinctions or privileges of a county town. The county gaol is at Morpeth, where all the executions take place; and the assizes, probably for the convenience of the judges, are held in Newcastle.

Hist Parl Online[edit]

1690-1715:[121]

County towns had an obvious importance, as the usual site of polling. ... Where the county town itself was not centrally located, the representation might well be skewed towards the gentry residing in its vicinity ...
In nearly every county it was customary to hold pre-election meetings of the justices of the peace and other substantial landowners, generally, though not always, at assizes or quarter sessions, in order to settle in advance who would be the candidates. ... Factions abused the concept of the county meeting for private purposes, summoning only their own supporters to exclusive sessions in which a party slate of candidates would be drafted, but invested with the prestige of having been nominated in the traditional way. ... Often the two parties held separate meetings. As party conflict escalated, the general meeting became a rarer phenomenon ... Where general meetings remained popular and authoritative, county elections were seldom contested. But that system only held in a small number of counties: Staffordshire ... Herefordshire ... Monmouthshire ... Warwickshire
Sheriff pre-1696 could
  • change poll from usual place:
    • valid: Wiltshire 1690 Wilton to Salisbury smallpox
    • foul play: Surrey 1695 Guildford to Reigate (anti-Onslow); Cumberland 1705 ? to Carlisle and then to Salkeld Yeats (anti-Gilfrid Lawson Tory);
  • adjourn the poll to another place:
    • valid: Sussex Chichester to Lewes; post-1695 bill to fix at Lewes failed; Hampshire Winchester to Newport IoW, though 1708 sheriff adjourned early
    • foul play: Gloucestershire 1695 Gloucester adj to Wootton-under-Edge to Bisley;

1754-1790:[122]

Candidates for the [English] county were fixed upon at a county meeting, held about a year before the general election was due, and attended by the leading peers and country gentlemen.
The chief objection to county contests was their enormous expense. This arose principally from the fact that the voting took place at the county town; and the electors had to be brought there, fed, liquored, and lodged at the candidates’ expense.
In 1780, when both Members retired, an advertisement appeared in the Birmingham Gazette for a meeting of freeholders to choose a candidate as Holte’s successor, whom they would then propose to the county. ... Thus Birmingham, itself unenfranchised, had established its claim to choose one of the county Members
The right of voting in Scottish county elections thus lay in the hands of a small number of substantial landowners ... All voters had to be entered on the roll of freeholders, which was made up annually at the Michaelmas head court of the county and immediately before an election.

Later[edit]

Somerton 1278/1280-1366[123]

Holmes, Geoffrey (1986). Politics, Religion and Society in England: 1679-1779. A&C Black. pp. 19–21. ISBN 978-0-907628-75-0. discusses inconvenient polling places: "All Cumberland elections save that of 1702 were held at Salkeld Yeats [Salkeld Dykes?] (or was it Gates?)"

18C Lancs[124]

The county had two legal centres, Lancaster for the county assizes and Preston for the Duchy courts. Though Lancaster was the official county town, Preston because of its southerly position was to prove a far more important centre for

20 Geo III c.1: Southampton by-election exceptionally held at New Alresford because the normal law would have required soldiers to leave Winchester for the election and lots of French and Spanish prisoners of war held there would be left unguarded.[125] 20 Geo III c.50: for the same reason, both Winchester and Shrewsbury temporarily exempt from requirement to remove soldiers.[125]

N. C. Phillips:[126]

The historic county was still in I780 a natural organ of political action. With its high sheriff and grand jury, its petty and quarter sessions, it was an administrative and judicial unit ; with its lord lieutenant and militia, a military unit; with its differentiated land-tax assessment, a fiscal unit ; with its race meeting (in thirty-five English counties out of forty), its county town, its county families, a sporting and social unit; and it was given a political being by its two members of parliament, who had to be publicly nominated and occasionally voted for by the forty-shilling freeholders, and by the institution of the county meeting.

The law-dictionary (1811), Vol. 5, p.75:[127]

But elections of Knights of the Shire must be proceeded to by the Sheriffs themselves in person; and, according to former laws, at the next county Court after the delivery of the writ, to be holden at the most usual place in the county. If the county Court fell upon the day of delivering the writ, or within six days after, the Sheriff might have adjourned the Court, and election, to some other convenient time, not longer than sixteen days, nor shorter than ten; but he cannot alter the place without the consent of all the candidates. Now, by stat. 25 Geo. 3. c. 84. it is enacted, that the Sheriff having indorsed on the back of the writ the day on which he received it, shall, within two days after the receipt thereof, cause proclamation to be made, at the place where the ensuing election ought by law to be held, of a special County-Court, to be there held for the purpose of such election only; on any day, Sunday excepted, not later from the day of making such proclamation than the sixteenth day, nor sooner than the tenth; and that he shall proceed on such election, at such special County Court, in the same manner as if the said election had been held at a County-Court, or at an adjourned County-Court, according to the former laws. And by stat. 33 Geo. 3. c. 64. all notices of the time and place of election of members of Parliament shall be publicly given, at the usual place, between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon, from October 25th to March 25th; and, during the other half year, between eight in the morning and six in the afternoon.
55 Geo.III c.194 s.18, Summary:
The master and wardens, or the court of examiners may by writing under their hands, appoint five apothecaries in any county of Eng. and Wa., except London and 30 miles round, to act for that or for an adjoining county, and may displace them; such five apothecaries shall examine and grant or refuse certificates to all assistants to apothecaries in their county, at a monthly meeting in the county town; no act done by them shall be valid, except done at such meeting; all their powers may be exercised by a majority of not less than three; a chairman shall be appointed with casting vote in case of equality of votes including his own.

A summary of the law relative to the election of members of parliament, 1825:[128]

By 7&8 W. 3, c. 25, s. 3, and 18 G. 2, c. 18, s. 10, the Election for knights of the shire was to be holden at the county court, and provision was made for its adjournment within a limited period for that purpose. But now a special court is to be holden for such Election, and proclamation of holding it is to be made within two days after the receipt of the writ at the place where the Election is to be holden, (25 G 3 c 84 s4) that is, at the most usual place of Election for the last forty years.(7&8 W 3 c 25 s 3)

An 1829 report on law in England and Wales lists "Places appointed for holding Assizes, other than the Shire Towns".[129] (In some but not all counties in the list, the shire town is noted; read in conjunction with p.55 "to the exclusion of" implies the shire town is that named as excluded.)

1830 summary:[130]

With respect to the place of election, it is enacted by the act 7 and 8 W. 3, c. 25, s. 3, that upon the election of every knight of a shire, the sheriff of the county where such election shall be made shall hold his county court for the same election at the most public and usual place of election within the same county, and where the same has most usually been for forty years last past. Notwithstanding this act, the House of Commons and its committees admit a discretion in the sheriff to change the place of election under particular circumstances, when it appears to them that he was not influenced in making that change by corrupt motives.(1 Heyw. 347, 32 Jour. 756-864) In some counties the place of election is fixed by act of parliament, as at Alnwick for Northumberland,(19 H.7 c.24) at Chichester and Lewis alternately for Sussex,(2 E.2 c.25) and at Bridgend for Glamorganshire.(35 G.3 c.72)

Thetford to Norwich petititions 1832[131]

Reform Act 1832:[132]

county constituency polling centre section of act (link)
North Riding of Yorkshire York 12
West Riding of Yorkshire Wakefield 12
East Riding of Yorkshire Beverley 12
Parts of Lindsey Lincoln 13
Isle of Wight Newport 16
"Shire town or principal borough" in Wales

Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will IV c.64), Schedule N,[132] specifies Oakham as the only polling place in Rutland, and likewise Brecon in Brecknockshire.

Scottish Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will IV c.65) s.24: ...each Three of the Sheriffs above named, as joint Judges of Appeal for the Counties herein above specified, shall ... proceed upon a Circuit into the District as to which they are hereby constituted Judges of Appeal, and shall repair successively to the County Town, and to at least One other Town in each of the Counties, in each such District, (excepting always combined Counties, which shall for this Purpose be held but as One County, and excepting also the County of Orkney and Shetland, for which the Court of Review shall be held only at Kirkwall in Orkney,) and shall there hear and determine on all such Appeals s.27: ... each Sheriff shall divide his County into convenient Districts for polling, ... and every Voter shall poll at the Polling Place of the District within which the Premises, or any Part of them, in respect of which he claims to vote may be situate, except only where such Polling Place shall be in an Island distant more than Ten Miles from the Mainland of any County, in which Case the Voters not resident in such Island may poll at the Polling Place for the District in which the County Town is included: ... s.29: And be it enacted, That on the Day named by the Order of Sheriff for the Election for the Shire the Sheriff shall repair to Market Cross or some other convenient and open Place in or immediately adjoining the County Town, and shall there publicly proclaim the Writ by reading it; provided always, that the Writ for the United Counties of Clackmannan and Kinross shall be proclaimed at the Town of Dollar; and that the Writ for the united Counties of Elgin and Nairn shall be proclaimed at the Town of Forres; and that the Writ for the united Counties of Ross and Cromarty shall be proclaimed at the Town of Dingwall; and ... if ... a Poll is demanded, ... the Polling shall commence at the Places previously intimated.

Among 1832 addresses to William IV, after surviving stone thrown by Dennis Collins at Royal Ascot, was one from "the Vicar, Curate, Churchwardens, and Inhabitants of New Brentford, the county town of Middlesex".[133]

2 Will.4 c.48 [23d June 1832] An Act for holding the Assizes for the County of Norfolk, and for the City of Norwich and County of the same City, Twice in every Year at Norwich

3&4 Will.4 c.71 [28 August 1833] An Act for the appointment of convenient places for the holding of assizes in England and Wales [Assizes Act 1833]

Penny Cyclopedia, 1834:[134]

Aylesbury, as being one of the assize towns, the place where the quarter-sessions are always held, and the principal place of county election, has the best title to be considered as the county town.

1839 Classes of Towns in England: 26 Jan 1839, Penny Magazine of the Society for the Transmission of Useful Knowledge, Vol.8 No.434 p.30:

The seat of an episcopal see is generally the county town, though there are exceptions, as Peterborough, Chichester, Rochester, and Ripon. But as there are forty counties in England, and the number of English bishops does not exceed twenty-two, including the two archbishops, there are also many County Towns which have no cathedral or minster, nor bishop and dean and chapter, but differ from other towns of perhaps similar size in consequence of the public business of the county being transacted there. Here are the county gaol, the lunatic asylum, the infirmary, and the court-house in which the judges hold their assize at Lent and Midsummer. The smaller the county-town the more prominent do these establishments and their officers become, the latter occupying something like the same position as the clergy and the officers of the church in a cathedral city. The county-town is frequently resorted to by the aristocracy and gentry for various purposes of pleasure and business. The most able professional men reside in it, and here the wealthiest banking firm is perhaps established: there are the best supplied shops; the most fashionable tailors and milliners; the most skilful artisans;— nearly everything which is to be found in the metropolis, with a close approach to metropolitan perfection. The county halls, the annual races, and the assembling of the county yeomanry, and other similar occurrences, relieve the county town from the quietness which it would otherwise experience. In many instances, however, it has happened that a place of former insignificance has sprung up with all its interests flourishing in pristine vigour, while those of the older town have decayed. In some instances the assizes are held alternately at two towns in the same county, both being equally entitled to the privilege, and the convenience of the shire being promoted by the arrangement.

12 & 13 Vict c.6 (9 March 1849) "AN ACT to repeal an Act of the Twenty-first Year of George the Second, for holding the Summer Assizes at Buckingham; and to authorize the Appointment of a more convenient Place for holding the same."

  • LGaz 20983 p.1793 (21 May 1849) moves to Aylesbury — recites that Assizes Act 1833 not enough to overrule the Buckinghamshire Assizes Act 1747 [21 Geo.2 c.12] "An Act for holding the summer assizes, for the county of Buckingham, at the county town of Buckingham"

Kalendars of Gwynedd, 1873:[135]

The ancient "County town" of Harlech is a town only in name, and has no existing sign of its title except the election of the Knight of the Shire, which still takes place here. [footnote:]  :*Feb. 3, 1608. Justices of Merionethshire to Ralph, Lord Eure, President of Wales, representing the inconvenience of holding the Sessions in different places, and requesting that they may be always held in one place, and recommend Harlech.
  • 4 Feb., 1608. Inhabitants of Harlech to Lord Eure, entreating him to have the Sessions brought back again to Harlech.
  • 18 March, 1809. Lord Eure recommends same. Order in consequence, 22 Mar., and further reference 25 May, 1609.
(Extracts by Mr. Wynne, from Calendars of State Papers at Lower Eatington Park).
There is an original bond at Brogyntyn, from Griffith Vaughan, of Corsygedol, Esq., to Ralph, Lord Eure, Lord President of Wales, dated 25 Feb., 6 James I., for the payment of ^30, conditional, on Lord Eure's getting the Great and Quarter Sessions to be held at Harlech. Such was the open corruption of those days ! There is also a like bond, from several persons, to Sir William Maurice, of Clenenny. W.
Formerly its strong castle—the splendid ruins of which still remain—gave it great importance; but the bombardment and capture of the Castle by Cromwell's forces in 1647, and the subsequent dismantling of it by Charles II., left only the shell of the great stronghold built by Edw. I., on the site of the ancient fortress first known in Welsh history as Twr Bronwen, and afterwards as Caer Collwyn.

The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, Vol 1:

Far below Norwich, but still high in dignity and importance, were some other ancient capitals of shires. In that age it was seldom that a country gentleman went up with his family to London. The county town was his metropolis. He sometimes made it his residence during part of the year. At all events, he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals, and races. There were the halls where the judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and trumpets, opened the King's commission twice a year. There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed to sale. There were the great fairs to which merchants came clown from London, and where the rural dealer laid in his annual stores of sugar, stationery, cutlery, and muslin. There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery. Some of these places derived dignity from interesting historical recollections, from cathedrals decorated by all the art and magnificence of the middle ages, from palaces where a long succession of prelates had dwelt, from closes surrounded by the venerable abodes of deans and canons, and from castles which had in the old time repelled the Nevilles or de Veres, and which bore more recent traces of the vengeance of Rupert or of Cromwell.

The story of the shire, being the lore, history and evolution of English county institutions[136]

The capital of any country or province is the town which is the seat of the Government. Similarly the county-town is the one in which the Assizes for the county are usually held, and in which the other branches of local self-government for the shire area are carried on. ... In recent years new towns which have become great centres of population as Leeds and Birmingham have been created Assize-towns ; so that in one geographical county there may now be found more than one town enjoying that privilege which was once the special prerogative and characteristic of a county-town.
Since 1878 the Crown has been empowered to deprive any county of the privilege of having assizes held within it. To some of the smaller county towns which very largely depend upon the Assizes for their importance, the loss of this ancient privilege would mean a very substantial depreciation in their property values ; little wonder, therefore, that the prospect of such deprivation fills them with dismay. Even a busy town like Stafford demurs to be superseded by Birmingham. In Kent, Assizes were formerly held at East Greenwich, Dartford, Milton-next - Gravesend, Sevenoaks, Rochester, Maidstone, and Canterbury. In the time of Richard II. the assizes were held most frequently at Canterbury, and it was one of the grievances of Jack Cade and his followers that they had to travel from the farthest parts of West Kent into the east to attend the sessions of the peace "causing men some five days' journey, and they desired for the better administration of justice it should be divided into two parts." Maidstone, once but of little repute, became the assize town after the Restoration. Canterbury (a county in itself) is, of course, the ecclesiastical capital of Kent, and Maidstone is now the county town. The cathedral city prefers that Maidstone should enjoy the privilege of carrying out executions. The other corner county, Cornwall, also hesitates between its cathedral town, Truro, and Bodmin with its gaol, as to which is really the county town. Launceston was the ancient capital of the Duchy the office of Constable of Launceston Castle is still in existence.

Summary of 19C changes: pomp and ceremony gone by 1860s, most kept in small towns anxious not to lose assizes.[137]

The 1861 census lists 63 "county or assize towns" for England (49) and Wales (14) with a footnote explanation, "In some Counties the chief town is undetermined and the Assizes are held at two Towns alternately, hence the number of County or Assize Towns exceeds the number of Counties".[138]

As regards "scientific culture", "county centres tended to be of special importance in the eighteenth century when compared with other centres such as ports, manufacturing and market towns [and] this continued to be so well into the Victorian period despite the accelerated eclipse of most county towns in demographic and economic terms."[97]

McHugh, Denise (1 November 2019) [2002]. Remaking the Victorian County Town 1860-1910 (PhD). Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester. p. 10.

In the eighteenth century most county towns were still the ancient shire centres which accommodated the institutions of county government and social provision. These were not, however, the only county centres operating within many counties; for example, in Lincolnshire, Stamford functioned as a social and leisure centre for the county gentry and Bury St Edmunds challenged Ipswich to become an alternative focus of commerce and leisure in Suffolk. The people and business that urban status attracted caused many towns to emulate the shire centres and create comparable institutions or amenities however the ancient shire centres remained significant. In the majority of counties the ancient shire centres possessed an unrivalled concentration of administrative functions and services such as quarter sessions, county gaols and county hospitals in the eighteenth century and as such formed a recognisable urban genre. By the mid-nineteenth century the definition of the ‘county town’ was confused by their declining status and by 1871 the census listed ‘65 old county towns and assize towns’ in England and Wales bracketing county towns together with other ancient centres with an administrative function.

1871 Census of England and Wales, Vol.IV: General Report. Command papers. Vol. C.872-I. London: Eyre and Spottiswood for HMSO. 1873.

  • p.xxxiv "The 65 old county towns and the assize towns, with their markets, fairs, shops, county meetings, and assizes, form a second class, with a population of 2,685,000."
  • p.39 Table 41 Class II fn.b: Croydon, Guildford, Kingston-upon-Thames; Canterbury, Maidstone; Lewes; Winchester; Reading, Hertford, Aylesbury; Oxford, Northampton; Huntingdon; Bedford; Cambridge; Chelmsford,' Colchester; Bury St. Edmunds, "Ipswich; Norwich;. Devizes, Salisbury; Dorchester; Exeter; Bodnin; Taunton, Wells; Bristol, Gloucester; Hereford; Shrewsbury; Stafford Worcester; Warwick; Leicester; Oakham; Lincoln ; Nottingham Derby; Chester; Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester; Leeds, York; Durham Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Carlisle; Appleby, Monmouth; Cardiff, Swansea; Carmarthen; Haverfordwest ; Cardigan; Brecknock; Presteigne; Newtown, Welshpool; Mold; Ruthin; Bala, Dolgelly; Carnarvon ; Beaumaris

An 1883 list of counties corporate, distinguishing those which were also casswize town of adjoining county-at-large.[139]

Chambers, George F (January 1890). "West Sussex County Council". Cnty. Council Mag. 2 (12): 324.

In West Sussex, as also in East, and with more reason, much discussion occurred regarding the council's place of meeting. In East Sussex, though that division has but one county town, Lewes, yet the sheriff, as an adroit electioneering manoeuvre, summoned the first meeting of the council at Eastbourne, being the place for which he was, and is, a Parliamentary candidate.
In West Sussex the sheriff, however, did the obvious thing of summoning the council at the county town of Chichester, but the door was opened for controversy, seeing that it has long been the custom for Quarter Sessions of West Sussex to meet at Chichester, Horsham, and Petworth in rotation.
The question of alternative places of meeting was one that was raised in many counties of England besides Sussex, and notably in Lincolnshire. It is a policy which I strongly advocate.

England[edit]

County Namesake town Assize town County jail Knights nominated Knights elected County hall (original) County hall (modern)
Avon NA NA NA NA NA NA Bristol 1974 to 1996
Bedfordshire Bedford Bedford Bedford Bedford Bedford Bedford Bedford
Berkshire NA Abingdon (summer to 1867) Reading (Lent; summer from 1867, approved by the privy council in 1869[140] In 1849 Baron Platt refused to use Reading from 1849 till new courthouse built in 1861.[141] Reading (county gaol and house of correction) Abingdon (bridewell)[142] Reading[142] Abingdon[142] Reading (county borough until 1974) Reading
Buckinghamshire Buckingham Aylesbury (Moved by Sir John Baldwin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas[142]) ? ? Buckingham Aylesbury Aylesbury
Cambridgeshire (Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely 1965–74) Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge
Cheshire Chester Chester Chester Chester Chester Chester Chester
Cornwall NA Bodmin ? ? ? Truro Truro
Cumberland Carlisle Knights of the Shire were elected at Cockermouth 1889 to 1974 Carlisle (county borough from 1914)
Cumbria 1974 onwards Carlisle
Derbyshire Derby 1889 onwards Matlock (moved from Derby, county borough 1958)[143]
Devon Exeter 1889 onwards Exeter (county borough until 1974). In 1963 the Devon County Buildings Area was transferred from the county borough of Exeter to the administrative county of Devon, of which it formed an exclave until 1974.[144]
Dorset Dorchester 1889 onwards Dorchester
County Durham Durham 1889 onwards Durham
Essex Chelmsford 1889 onwards Chelmsford
Gloucestershire Gloucester 1889 onwards Gloucester (county borough until 1974)
Greater London 1965 to 1986
2002 onwards 		County Hall, Lambeth (Greater London Council)
City Hall, Southwark (Greater London Authority)
Greater Manchester 1974 to 1986 Manchester
Hampshire Winchester although the county is named after Southampton 1889 onwards Winchester
Herefordshire Hereford 1889 to 1974
1998 onwards 		Hereford
Hereford and Worcester 1974 to 1998 Worcester
Hertfordshire Hertford 1889 onwards Hertford
Humberside 1974 to 1996 Beverley
Huntingdonshire Huntingdon 1889 to 1965 Huntingdon
Huntingdon and Peterborough 1965 to 1974 Huntingdon
Isle of Ely 1889 to 1965 March
Isle of Wight 1890 onwards Newport
Kent Maidstone East Kent and West Kent had separate administrations until 1814, with East Kent sessions meeting at Canterbury, and West Kent at Maidstone, the over-all county town. 1889 onwards Maidstone
Lancashire Lancaster, superseded by Preston, where the County Hall was opened in 1882. In 1787 the Lancashire Quarter Sessions decreed that in future the annual general sessions for transacting all business for the county at large should be held at Preston as it was "a central place in the county." The magistrates of Lonsdale Hundred refused to accept the decision, and would meet only at Lancaster. The matter was settled only when a local act of parliament (38 Geo.III c.58) established that the principal administrative business of the county could be transacted only at Preston.[145] 1889 onwards Preston (county borough until 1974)
Leicestershire Leicester 1889 onwards Glenfield (moved from county borough of Leicester in 1967)
Lincolnshire Lincoln 1974 onwards Lincoln
Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey 1889 to 1974 Lincoln (county borough)
Lincolnshire, Parts of Holland 1889 to 1974 Boston
Lincolnshire, Parts of Kesteven 1889 to 1974 Sleaford
London 1889 to 1965 Spring Gardens, Westminster until 1922, County Hall at Lambeth thereafter.
Merseyside 1974 to 1986 Liverpool
Middlesex Brentford, Clerkenwell, the City of London or Westminster for different functions; Knights of the Shire were elected at Brentford; sessions presided over by Middlesex Justices of the Peace were held at Clerkenwell; trials for persons accused of the most serious crimes took place in the Old Bailey before the Aldermen of the City prior to the committing of the accused to Newgate Prison (which functioned as the county gaol for Middlesex) if found guilty; while the county council had its headquarters at the Middlesex Guildhall in Westminster from its establishment in 1889 until its abolition in 1965.[146] 1889 to 1965 Middlesex Guildhall at Westminster in County of London
Norfolk Norwich 1889 onwards Norwich (county borough until 1974)
Northamptonshire Northampton 1889 onwards Northampton (county borough until 1974)
Northumberland Alnwick Alnwick's position as the county town seems to have been based largely on its castle being the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, although Knights of the Shire were elected at the town too.[147] Assizes for the county however were held mainly or exclusively in Newcastle upon Tyne. Morpeth Castle was used as the prison for Northumberland, and the county gaol was built there in 1824.[148][149] 1889 onwards Newcastle upon Tyne 1889 - 1981[150]
Morpeth since 1981[151]
Nottinghamshire Nottingham 1889 onwards West Bridgford (moved from county borough of Nottingham in 1959)
Oxfordshire Oxford 1889 onwards Oxford (county borough until 1974)
Soke of Peterborough 1889 to 1965 Peterborough, although geographically considered part of Northamptonshire
Rutland Oakham 1889 to 1974
1997 onwards 		Oakham
Shropshire Shrewsbury 1889 onwards Shrewsbury
Somerset Taunton Knights of the Shire were elected at Ilchester. Somerton temporarily became the county town in the late thirteenth century, when the shire courts and county gaol were moved from Ilchester.[152]

Bridgwater summer assizes every year from 1720 and alternate years by 1797 until 1853.[153]

1889 onwards Taunton
Staffordshire Stafford 1889 onwards Stafford
Suffolk Ipswich 1974 onwards Ipswich
East Suffolk 1889 to 1974 Ipswich (county borough)
West Suffolk 1889 to 1974 Bury
Surrey Guildford Under an act of 1791, the justices of the peace of the county of Surrey were empowered to build a new sessions house and county gaol at Newington adjacent to the borough of Southwark and in the suburbs of London.[154] By 1799 the buildings were completed and the county administration was based there until 1893.[155] Newington, or more inaccurately Southwark were sometimes described as the county town thereafter, for instance in a school textbook of 1828.[156] Around 1800 Kingston Lent assizes, Guildford and Croydon alternated summer assizes.[141] 1889 onwards Inner London Sessions House, Newington, until County Hall, Kingston upon Thames opened in 1893 (Kingston has been in Greater London since 1965).[157]
Sussex Chichester or Lewes Horsham was occasionally described as the county town of Sussex due to the presence of the county gaol and the periodic holding of the county assizes and quarter sessions in the town. The last assizes were held there in 1830, while the gaol was closed in 1845.[158]
East Sussex 1889 onwards Lewes
West Sussex 1889 onwards Chichester (originally jointly with Horsham)[158]
Tyne and Wear 1974 to 1986 Newcastle upon Tyne
Warwickshire Warwick 1889 onwards Warwick
West Midlands 1974 to 1986 Birmingham
Westmorland Appleby 1889 to 1974 Kendal
Wiltshire Trowbridge although the county is named after Wilton Wiltshire County Council note that Wiltshire "never had a well recognised county town". Wilton had served as the seat of Quarter Sessions and for election of Knights of the Shire until 1832. Knights had been nominated at Devizes.[159] A 1870s gazetteer describes "Salisbury and Devizes" as the "county towns".[160] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica names only Salisbury. 1889 onwards Trowbridge
Worcestershire Worcester 1889 to 1974
1998 onwards 		Worcester (county borough until 1974)
Yorkshire York
Yorkshire, East Riding 1889 to 1974
1996 onwards 		Beverley (later HQ of Humberside)
Yorkshire, North Riding 1889 to 1974 Northallerton
North Yorkshire 1974 onwards Northallerton
South Yorkshire 1974 to 1986 Barnsley
Yorkshire, West Riding 1889 to 1974 Wakefield (county borough from 1915)
West Yorkshire 1974 to 1986 Wakefield

Scotland[edit]

Phrase "head burgh" also used.

1862:[161]

And also, by virtue and in name and authority foresaid, I passed to the Market-cross of F., being the head burgh (or county town, when there is no burgh in the shire) of the Sheriffdom (or Stewartry)

Many Gazette matches 18c-19c to "this Our Royal Proclamation be duly published at the Market-Cross at Edinburgh, and in all the county towns of Scotland"

"Till 1581 it seems to have been generally believed in Scotland that a statute did not bind the lieges in any shire until proclaimed at the market cross of the chief town in the shire."[162]

Seems a 1587 act[163] provided for election of Shire Commissioners [annually at Michaelmas?] at sheriff's court [always held in county town?][164]

A 1632 decision mitigating the transfer from Duns to Greenlaw as the act was private and little known:[165]

IN a reduction upon a reason of inhibition, the defender alleging the inhibition to be null, because being execute within the sheriffdom of Berwick, it was not execute at the market-cross of Greenlaw, but only at Dunse; albeit, by act of Parliament, it is appointed, that all such executions and hornings should be execute at Greenlaw, which is declared the head burgh of the sheriffdom by that act, and all executions otherwise made, are declared null. This allegeance was repelled, and the inhibition sustained, in respect of the consuetude, and use to execute at Dunse, notwithstanding of that act, and that the act is not in observance, and that it is but a particular private act, not printed, and so not public and known to the lieges, but contained in a ratification of an infestment of some lands, granted to the Earl of Dumbar, wherein Greenlaw is erected the head burgh, with the declaration foresaid, and which is ratified in Parliament, and so is but a private act, not keeped, nor known in the country, nor printed, or published; and this was done without any probation.

1633/6/91 Act in favour of Archibald Campbell, lord Lorne "unites the said sheriffdom of Tarbert to the foresaid sheriffdom of Argyll"

Bell, Robert; Skene, Sir John (1815). A dictionary of the law of Scotland: intended for the use of the public at large, as well as of the profession. J. Anderson & Co. p. 665. Retrieved 28 August 2011.:

QUARTER-SESSIONS Of JUSTICES Of The PEACE. By the act 1661, c. 38, the Justices of the Peace are directed to meet four times in the year at the county town', that is, on the first Tuesdays of May, August, and March, and the last Tuesday of October, with power to adjourn their meetings to any other day or place they may judge proper. At these quarterly courts, the justices have the power of reviewing the sentences pronounced at the occasional meetings of justices, when the sentence is of a nature subject to review.

Under an Act of Parliament of 1741 quarter sessions had to be held at the head burgh of a county.[166]

1824 cites:[167]

p.85: They are specially directed by that statute [1661 c.88] to meet four times in the year at the county-town [fn: The statute says nothing as to these meetings being held "at the county town." There is, however, a decided case, where the Court "found, that the head burgh of the shire is the place where the Justices of the Peace ought to hold their Quarterly Courts or Sessions;" Kilk. Earl of Home, &c. 30th June 1741, Dict. p. 7602.], on the first Tuesdays of May, August, and March, and the last Tuesday of October, with power to continue or adjourn these quarterly meetings to any other day or place they shall judge proper. But they have always held courts upon particular causes at any time and in any place within the county, though not by way of adjournment of the quarter-sessions.
p.577: These letters [re selling by creditors of lands of a bankrupt] must be published, according to the directions of the said act 1681 [c.17], at the market-cross of the head burgh of the jurisdiction where the lands lie, and at the parish-church, and at six other adjacent parish-churches, after dismissing the congregation: And the real creditors who are in possession are to be thereupon specially cited, upon twenty-one days; and all others having interest, at the market-cross of the head borough of the jurisdiction, and at the market-cross of Edinburgh, and pier and shore of Leith, on sixty days; at all which places, copies of the letters of intimation are to be affixed

1828 Court of Session case discusses law relating to "head burgh" of shire.[168] (I haven't studied this yet: Possibly "head burgh" had to be a burgh, or even a royal burgh; maybe some shires had no such?):

George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse: When we speak of the head burgh of a county, I apprehend that we should, in the first place, ascertain what is meant by the term head burgh. It is known to your Lordships that, from the first appearance of the jurisdiction of sheriffdom in Scotland, the Courts of the Sheriff were divided into two classes. Under the first class there were three head Courts, at which all the tenants in capite—freeholders who owed suit and presence— were bound to appear personally; those who owed suit only, were bound to appear either by themselves or their proxies. At these Courts they were bound to appear without summons. The other class consisted of the ordinary Courts held by the Sheriff, and at which suitors were bound to attend. The head Courts were held generally, I believe, in one burgh of each shire, and I understand it was called the head burgh. Whether it was called so because the tenants of the Crown attended these Courts, has been disputed. But certain it is, there were head Courts and ordinary Courts. The former have dwindled into one which is held at Michaelmas, and at the head burgh of the shire. But though that is the regular and correct practice as to the head Court, yet the ordinary Courts of the Sheriff are held at other places, and those burghs are also termed, in common parlance, head burghs. Thus, in the county of Lanark, Lanark is, properly speaking, the head burgh; but Hamilton and Glasgow are also head burghs, because Sheriff Courts are held there; and this is the modern language of the law of Scotland, as you will see in Mr. Erskine, where he lays it down in these terms:– All ‘shires have a head burgh where the jurisdiction is to be exercised, and * where all letters of inhibition, interdiction, horning, &c., are to be pub‘lished and registered. Some of the larger shires are, for the conveniency • of the inhabitants, subdivided into lesser districts, each of which hath a • proper head burgh. Thus, in the shire of Clydesdale, Lanark is the * head burgh of the Over ward, both for holding Courts and registering ‘diligences. Hamilton is the head burgh of the Nether ward for holding ‘Courts, and Rutherglen for publishing and registering diligences; and “immemorial custom hath given a sanction to these divisions, without the ‘authority of the statute.’

Court of Sessions Act 1850 s.22 repealed provisions for "County Town or Head Burgh of the Shire" relating to notices relating to minors:

And be it enacted, That the subsisting Forms of Edictal Citation, Charge, Publication, Citation, and Service at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and Pier and Shore of Leith, in Processes of Ranking and Sale, and in all other Processes and Proceedings whatsoever, and also the subsisting Forms of Edictal Citations of the Minor's next of Kin at the Market Cross of the County Town or Head Burgh of the Shire where the Minor has his Lands and Goods, and of Citation of, the Tutors and Curators of Minors at the Market Cross of the County Town or Head Burgh of the Shire of the Minor's Residence, shall cease and be discontinued; and in lieu thereof all such Edictal Citations, Charges, Publications, Citations, and Services shall be done and performed by Delivery of a Copy thereof at the Office of the Keeper of Edictal Citations according to the Mode established by the said recited Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Fourth in regard to Persons furth of Scotland, and by an Act of Sederunt of the Court of Session dated the Twenty-fourth Day of December One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.

1832 book:[169]

On the day named by the sheriff for the election, he is to claim the writ and repair to the Market-cross, or some other convenient and open place, in or immediately adjoining the county-town, and there publicly proclaim the writ by reading it.
But if such polling-place be in an island distant more than ten miles from the mainland of any county, the voters not resident in the island may poll at the polling-place for the district in which the county town is included.

Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1835 5 & 6 Will. 4. c. 78 s.9:

And be it enacted, That any Freeholder of any County or Shire in Scotland whose Rights are preserved to him by the said recited Act [2 & 3 W.4. c.65] shall be entitled to make Application to the Sheriff of such County or Shire, and upon One Month's Notice thereof being published on the Doors of the said Sheriff Court, to poll at all Times thereafter at the Polling Place for the District within which the County Town is situated; and the Sheriff shall delete his Name from the District List, and insert it in that for the District in which the County Town is situate: Provided always, that after making such Application to the said Sheriff, and publishing such Notice on the Doors of the said Sheriff Court, it shall not be lawful for the said Freeholder to poll in any other District of such County or Shire; and provided also, that where a Fiar and Life Renter are registered in respect of the same Freehold Qualification they shall both concur in the said Application.

Berwickshire:

County County town
Aberdeenshire Aberdeen In 1900 Aberdeen became a county of a city and thus outside Aberdeenshire.
Angus (or Forfarshire) Forfar
Argyll Lochgilphead (formerly Inveraray) Inveraray (the seat of the Duke of Argyll) was regarded as the county town until 1890, when the Argyll County Council was created with headquarters in Lochgilphead.
Ayrshire Ayr
Banffshire Banff
Berwickshire Duns (formerly Berwick-upon-Tweed; thenGreenlaw till Berwickshire County Town Act 1903)
Bute Rothesay
Caithness Wick
Clackmannanshire Alloa (formerly Clackmannan)
Cromartyshire Cromarty
Dumfriesshire Dumfries
Dunbartonshire Dumbarton
East Lothian (or Haddingtonshire) Haddington
Fife Cupar
Inverness-shire Inverness
Kincardineshire Stonehaven (formerly Kincardine — not the larger Kincardine[-on-Forth])
Kinross-shire Kinross
Kirkcudbrightshire Kirkcudbright
Lanarkshire Lanark The headquarters of the Lanark County Council were established in 1890 in Glasgow. In 1893 Glasgow became a county of itself, and was therefore outside the council's area. The county council moved to Hamilton in 1964.[171]
Midlothian (or Edinburghshire) Edinburgh Edinburgh was a county of itself, and therefore lay outside the county of Midlothian.
Morayshire (or Elginshire) Elgin
Nairnshire Nairn
Orkney Kirkwall
Peeblesshire Peebles
Perthshire Perth
Renfrewshire Renfrew # The headquarters of Renfrew County Council were in Paisley from 1890.
Ross-shire Dingwall (also the county town of Ross and Cromarty)
Roxburghshire Jedburgh (formerly Roxburgh) Newtown St Boswells was the administrative headquarters of the county council established in 1890.
Selkirkshire Selkirk
Shetland Lerwick
Stirlingshire Stirling
Sutherland Dornoch The headquarters of Sutherland County Council were at Golspie from 1890.
West Lothian (or Linlithgowshire) Linlithgow
Wigtownshire Wigtown Stranraer became the administrative headquarters of the Wigtown county council in 1890, and was sometimes described as the "county town" thereafter.

Wales[edit]

Anglesey from Beaumaris to Newborough c.1501 when Arthur, Prince of Wales married Catherine of Aragon; transferred back by private act in 1549.[172]

Reform Act 1832 §§8-9 and Schedule E refers to "shire towns or principal boroughs" as well as contributory boroughs; I wonder if the corresponding boundary report gives more on which are "shire towns" and which "principal boroughs".

County County town
Anglesey Llangefni (formerly Beaumaris) Anglesey 1889 to 1974
1996 onwards		 Llangefni
Brecknockshire Brecon Brecknockshire 1889 to 1974 Brecon
Caernarfonshire Caernarfon Caernarvonshire 1889 to 1974 Caernarfon
Cardiganshire Cardigan Cardiganshire 1889 to 1974 Aberaeron
Carmarthenshire Carmarthen Carmarthenshire 1889 to 1974
1996 onwards		 Carmarthen
Clwyd 1974 to 1996 Mold
Denbighshire Ruthin (formerly Denbigh) Denbighshire 1889 to 1974 Denbigh
Dyfed 1974 to 1996 Carmarthen
Flintshire Mold (formerly Flint) Flintshire 1889 to 1974 Mold
Glamorgan Cardiff (Lewis 1849: "the county member was formerly elected at Bridgend, but that distinction has been transferred to Cardiff, the shire town") Glamorgan 1889 to 1974 Cardiff (county borough)
Gwent 1974 to 1996 Newport (1974-78), Cwmbran (1978-96)
Gwynedd 1974 to 1996 Caernarfon
Mid Glamorgan 1974 to 1996 Cardiff (extraterritorial)
South Glamorgan 1974 to 1996 Cardiff
West Glamorgan 1974 to 1996 Swansea
Merionethshire Dolgellau Merionethshire 1889 to 1974 Dolgellau
Montgomeryshire Montgomery Montgomeryshire 1889 to 1974 Welshpool
Monmouthshire Monmouth the Sheriff's county court was held alternately in Monmouth and Newport Monmouthshire 1889 to 1974 Newport (county borough from 1891)
Pembrokeshire Haverfordwest (formerly Pembroke) Pembrokeshire 1889 to 1974
1996 onwards		 Haverfordwest
Radnorshire Presteigne (formerly New Radnor) "Although New Radnor was named shire town, the county court was to alternate between it and Rhayader until 1543, when following the murder of a judge at the assizes there, Rhayader was replaced by Presteigne as the alternate meeting "[173] Radnorshire 1889 to 1974 Llandrindod Wells
Powys 1974 onwards Llandrindod Wells

Ireland[edit]

Calendar of Ormond deeds on assizes for

  • Liberty of Tipperary at Clonmel (1440[174], 1508[175])
  • Kilkenny at Knocktopher (1474[176]) Kilkenny (1596[177])

McCavitt, John (1989). ""Good Planets in Their Several Spheares"The Establishment of the Assize Circuits in Early Seventeenth Century Ireland". Irish Jurist. 24 (2): 248–278. JSTOR 44027748.

  • "assizes were not unknown in Ireland before the seventeenth century. As early as 1570 they were being held in counties Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Longford and in King's County" [citing The administration of justice in Ireland VTH (Vincent Thomas Higgins/Hyginus) Delany 1962 p.24; 1970 ed. p.27; 1981 ed. p.???]
  • gives circuits and counties 1603–15 but not towns (other than counties corporate) corporate county

Contrast "Until the re-establishment of regular circuits of assize from Dublin in 1606 the {Presidency] courts functioned in place of the common law system which had broken down in the fourteenth century" (citing J. Davies, A Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued)[178]

Irish Historic Towns Atlas:

  • Carrickfergus: "County, shire or assize town for County Antrim c. 1610 to 1844 (Parl, gaz.; see 13 Administration)."[179]

1570 Act of Parl specified diocesan schools, "The schoolehouse for every diocesse to be builded and erected in the principall shire towne of the diocesse, where schoolehouses be not alreadie builded".[180] However:[181]

In 1725 it was discovered that the Acts of Elizabeth and William were so defective that in many dioceses their provisions could not be carried out. An Act of that year [12 Geo.I. c.9] recited, that the Statute of Elizabeth,
for erecting free schools, bad not answered the pious and good design thereby intended, by reason of sundry defects that were in said Act. And that the places by the said act appointed for the building and erecting of such free schools, being the principal shire towns where scboolhouses were not already built, were left at too great an uncertainty, some dioceses, consisting of part only of one or more counties, and having no such shire towns, and others more than one within them; and it not being easy in some places to determine which is the principal shire town of the diocese.
The Act then provided that the schoolhouse might be built wherever a site was granted by certain ecclesiastical dignitaries, who were thereby empowered to convey land for that purpose not exceeding one acre, the site to be near the cathedral church, or such other more convenient place as the Chief Governor might approve of; and that until such site were granted, the diocesan might erect a house for the school wherever he thought most suitable.
c.1584:[182]
Queen Elizabeth now suggested that the uncertain taxes paid by the landlords of Connaught should be compounded for a certain fixed tax ; and with this view she addressed her Royal Letters to the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrott ; and she, at the same time desired that a Connaught Circuit for the Judges should be formed ; that the Assizes for the County of Sligo should be held in the town of Shgo; that Roscommon should be the Assizes town for the County of Roscommon, Burrishoole for the County of Mayo, and Ballinasloe for the County of Galway ; but she made no suggestion as to either Leitrim or Clare.
1604:[183]
The towns chosen for holding the assizes in the Connaught Circuit were Galway and Loughrea, alternately, for the County of Galway; Roscommon, for the County of Roscommon; Sligo, for the County of Sligo ; Leitrim, for the County Leitrim ; whilst for the County of Mayo, although the jail was at Cong, and though the assizes were to be held twice a-year there, there were no certain towns fixed upon for holding therein the same.

1671:[184]

Galway gaol in Loughrea (seat of Earl of Clanricarde) ruinous, replaced with new gaol in Galway (town gaol doubled up while county gaol building).

Carrick-on-Shannon spring 1733 Leitrim.[185] Castlebar spring and Ballinrobe summer 1783/4.[186]

Summer Assizes of 1795:[187]

Roscommon, 20th July ; Carrick, 27th July ; Sligo, 30th July ; Castlebar, 4th August ; Galvvay, 7th August ; Ennis, 15th August. This was the last year in which Ennis belonged to the Connaught Circuit

Trim — Shire town 1598 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598-9, 416); county town status transferred to Navan 1906 (Thom).[188]

Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598-9, 416 No.40 1598 Dec. 22; Sir Geffrey Fenton to Sir Robert Cecil. "Divers towns in the county of Meath, near unto Trim, the shire town of that county"

I guess Donegal Castle stronghold of the O'Donnells was earmarked as administrative centre of County Donegal; at what point did Lifford get chosen instead? R.J. Hunter says c.1607 citing state papers.[189] 1605 session house built there Cal SPI 1608 p.369 No.501 items 25, 26; 1608 Commissioners sat there Cal SPI 1608 p.389 No.517; Lifford Castle was a royal castle in 1608 (but so was Duncannon in Wexford) Cal SPI 1608 p.555 No.756;

Chichester had favoured Lisgoole Abbey in 1606-1610.[190] Devenish Abbey site of first (1610) assizes (temporary given disorded state of new county).[191] Enniskillen already favoured site by late 1610,[192] or even 1608 by Chichester.[193] The 1613 patent to William Cole required the county gaol to be erected there.[194]

Chichester 1607 forts to provision Cal SPI 1607 p.89 No.114:

Has anticipated their directions to furnish with victuals and other necessaries such forts in the North as stand in places remote from the seaside ; but the money according to the establishment has heretofore come so scantled to their hands (part of it being disposed of in the payment of old remains), that small was the portion that could be spared for those uses. This caused him to recommend by Sir Robert Newcomen the laying three or four months’ victuals into such places as their letters prescribe ; and forasmuch as he observes no people of this kingdom so variable and discontented as those of Ulster, the places, in his opinion, that principally require this provision, are within that province, as namely the Dyrrie, Lyffer, Ballashanan, Monahan, Mountjoye, Charlemount, and Enighselaghan [Inisloughlin].

Other Cal SPI:

  • 1580 Feb. 29 "Burris to be built as the shire town of Mayo ; its commodity, harbour, and iron." Sir N. Malbie to Walsyngham (1574-1585 p.211 no.64)
  • 1608 "In this county there is neither town nor civil habitation. Inishkellin [Inniskillen] is the fittest place, in his opinion, for the shire town, and to be made a corporation, which will require charge or forcement to bring men of wealth and substance to dwell there, in regard it is now altogether waste and desolate. But that His Majesty has a ward in the castle, some other places would be reserved for like purposes, which may be thought of upon the division."
  • 1609 "Whereas upon suit made by the agent for the town of Youghal in December last (in the name and on the behalf of the rest of the inhabitants of tha.t town), that in the division of the county of Cork (which was then intended in regard of the spaciousness thereof to be made two counties), the said town of Youghal might be a shire town in the new county as being the most fittest place for that purpose, we signified unto your Lordship by our letter bearing date the 20th of January last, ' that His Majesty was graciously pleased to yield unto their said suit, and to gTant unto them other privileges and liberties as in the letters is expressed ; forasmuch as His Majesty and we have since that time received information from the Lord President of Munster and by the gentlemen freeholders and others of the county aforesaid, that the dividing thereof in that sort will prove many ways enormous and inconvenient to the inhabitants in general (which was and is intended for their good), the said county being 60 miles in length, and Youghal standing at tlie east border thereof; we do therefore think it very unfit (although we hold the town of Youghal otherwise worthy to be favoured), that standing so near to Cork as it doth (being 26 miles distant from thence, and in the uttermost confines of the county eastward as aforesaid), thej- should be divided into two counties as by the said former direction was appointed. We do pray your Lordship to take special care that on the division of the said county it may be laid out into equal proportions as near as may be, so that Cork may continue the shire town (as it hath done) in the one, and Rosscarbery (being an ancient corporate town and the bishop's see), or some other town in the west (as your Lordship shall think fittest) may be the shire town of the new county. "
  • 1628 "And whereas his lordship justifies his act by the discretion of his election of the place for which that licence was sealed by him, being the shire town of Wicklow, so described as he hath set it forth in other considerable circumstances, that which he refused to seal was for the shire town of Carlogh [Carlow] in all points concurring fully with his lordship's grave considerations taken in the former, as all they who know Ireland do well know."
  • 1628 assize for Down moved from Newry, causing it to decline.[195]

Carew MS 1601 No.173: By taking it [Thomond] from the shire town and gaol, which was Lymericke, many inconveniences have happened, and many prisoners of account made escape ; and the Commissioners have been driven to keep their assizes in an open abbey.

In Sidney's 'orders to be observed by Sir Nicholas Malby for the better government of the province of Connaught,' issued in 1579, the north part of the city of Limerick was suggested as the 'shire town,' of Thomond 'because a jury may be had there for the orderly trial of all country causes.' But [later] the President [of Connaught] was directed [by Sidney] to choose some apt place in Thomond; and Quin, Killaloe, and Ennis were suggested as suitable.[196]

Barry, Terry (2000). A history of settlement in Ireland. Routledge. p. 165. ISBN 9780415182089. Retrieved 29 August 2011.

[After 1605 when shiring was complete] units of local government and administration were now firmly bounded and focused on a central place -- the county town. Many of the new county towns were built on the foundation of the focal points of the old lordships -- that of Monaghan and the MacMahons, Tyrone and O'Neill's Dungannon, Fermanagh and Maguire's Enniskillen and Cavan around O'Reilly's earlier urban foundation. ... The county town became the centres of the garrison, assize courts, and the local administration generally, their status boosted by the acquisition of gaol houses, session houses, schools and churches and most particularly by grants for fairs and markets.

Inquisitionum in Officio Rotulorum Cancellariae Hiberniae Asservatarum Repertorium. Vol. II. command of his majesty King George IV. In pursuance of an address of the house of Commons of Great Britain (an Ireland). 1829.

  • 1585 Donegal town for county [p. xvii]
  • 1585 "Tarmon" for Fermanagh [p. xviii] -- which termonn was this? "Castle Tarmon" may have been Enniskillen Castle, or "Castle Caldwell", or another.
  • 1591 Dungannon for Tyrone [p.xx]

Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester in 1606 suggested Lisgoole Abbey as site of County town of Fermanagh, but by 1608 chose Enniskillen.[197]

1609 Commission for Plantation of Ulster assizes held in Armagh for Armagh (7-12 Aug) Dungannon for Tyrone (13-23 Aug) Limavady for Coleraine (28-31 Aug) Derry for ??? (1-4 Sept) Lifford for Tyrconnell/Donegal (7-<=13 Sept) Enniskillen for Fermanagh (>=14-<=20 Sept) Cavan for Cavan (>=24-<=29 Sept).[198]

1612 assizes of County Coleraine were in Derry city; judges would have preferred Limavady but the London agents were in dispute with Thomas Phillips, county surveyor and proprietor of Limavady.[199] Letter :[200]

Forasmuch as your Lordship, by your letters of the 25th April last, hath signified that the Castle of Limavaddy is a place of good importance for his Majesty's service, standing in the highway, and about equal distance between the towns of Coleraine and Derry ; and that your Lordship, together with the judges of assize for those parts, are of constant opinion that the gaol and sessions-house is fittest and most conveniently to be established there, rather than out of the county, or in any extreme part of the same, to the incommodity and needless trouble of the inhabitants ; we have thought meet hereby to authorize and require your Lordship to settle and establish the gaol and sessions-house in that county of Coleraine, as shall be most behooffull for his Majesty's service, and the benefit of the country ; and as we doubt not but you will take that care for the ordering of the same as shall be most expedient, so we will not admit of any exception that may be made to the same, being a matter which your Lordship shall find convenient, and grounded upon so just and due respects.

30 June 1630: some odd ones here: Ardagh Ardee Belturbet Birre Kilmallocke Mallow Athenry Ballymore Jamestowne Strade Rosse

His Majesty’s revenue not being paid promptly, and several being behind, they are to get their money ready by Bartholomew Day, 24 August next, and bring to the town named below in their county. Kilmaynan for Dublin, Nase for Kildare, Nauan for Meath, Mullengare for Westmeath, Ardagh for Longford, Ardee for Louth, Downe for Co. Downe, Knockfergus for Antrim, Armagh for Co. Armagh, Dongannon for Tyrone, Derry for Londonderry, Liffer for Donegall, Inniskillin for Fermanagh, Belturbet for Cauan, Birre for King’s Co., Mary-borough for Queen’s Co., Kilkenny for Co. Kilkenny, Cloanmell for Tipperary, Kilmallocke for Limericke, Mallow for Corke, Dungaruan for Waterford, Traly for Kerry, Innish for Clare, Athenry for Galway, Ballymore for Sligo, Jamestowne for Letrim, Strade for Mayo, Roscoman for Roscoman, Rosse for Weixford, Catherlagh for that Countie, Wickloe for Co. Wickloe.

1632-1663:[201]

Even yet the assizes for the County of Mayo had not been held at any fixed place, although the county jail was at Cong ... Lord Mayo brought this matter under the notice of the Crown ... suggested "that the town of Bellcarra, now a village, near his residence of Castle Bourke, and on the road from Castlebar to Ballinrobe, was the fittest and most central place for holding the assizes". The King ... was pleased to cause letters patent to issue authorizing the holding of the assizes at Bellcarra for the next thirty-one years. After the expiration of this period, they were for half a century held at Ballinrobe and Bellcarra alternately. Criminals condemned to death in the latter place were executed from a tree on the lands of the neighbouring Abbey of Ballintober

Lodge:[202]

King Charles, [&?] being informed by the Petition of the Lord V. Mayo, that by reason there was no certain place appointed within the County of Mayo for the holding of the Assizes, Gaol Delivery Sessions & other publick meetings of the Ministers of Justice about the Affairs of that County, & that the Gaol being kept in Congae, a Town situate in the most remote part of the County ye People did not only suffer in their Estates by the journeying of the disorderly Prisoners with their Guard, through the Country to the place where the Judges met, but Justice also many times was prevented by the ordinary escape of notorious Malefactors, And whereas the Town of Ballincarra alias Bellcarra was by his Lordship represented as a fit place in all respects for the aforesd. publick meetings his Majesty being please to embrace all fit occasions to express his royal Care of the good & ease of his well affected subjects, directed the L. D. Wentworth, at his coming into Ireland calling to his assistance the Judges of that circuit, to take the Petition into consideration, & finding the Convenience as was informed, that according to former Procedings he shd. grant Letters Patents, for the term of 31 years, for the keeping of the said general Assemblies & meetings within the said Town, unless in time of general Contagion & Sickness. Greenwich, 10 July 1632.

1667:[203]

By the seventeenth century, however, it is clear that Dundalk was the seat of county administration. In March 1667 at a meeting of the Grand Jury of the county it was agreed "that it was necessary to erect his Majesty's gaol for securing malefactors in Dundalk in regard that it was the shire town where gaol delivery had been constantly held." As a result of this decision the Grand Jury purchased a castle called Castlenerooty, probably Rothe's Castle, situated on the site of the Dublin House licensed premises in Clanbrassil Street, for use as a gaol. At this time the sessions house was located in Church Street at the Yorke Street corner, but in 1739 a new sessions house was con structed on the site of the present courthouse, and which was replaced by the existing building in 1818.
By this time (1192), however, the Norman invasion had occurred, and on the death of Murrough Ó Cearbhaill, king of Airgialla, in 1188 this territory was parcelled out between the Norman families of Pippard (Ardee) and De Verdon (Dundalk and Ferrard). The territory around Louth (later to emerge as the barony of Louth) was however reserved to the Crown, apparently in recognition of its importance at the time as an administrative as well as an ecclesiastical centre, having been the seat of the Ó Cearbhaill kings of Airgialla. For many centuries thereafter the county was frequently referred to as either Louth or English Uriel, the latter being a corruption of Airgialla. It seems likely that it was the decision to retain Louth in the possession of the Crown which provided the genesis of what was later to become the county of Louth as we know it today.

List of assize towns 1660–1685 in Ball 1901.[204] (It excludes Tipperary as palatinate, and Dublin.)

10 August 1687: Omagh made the Assize Town of County Tyrone[205]

9 December 1695. "It has been usual to hold only one gaol delivery in Kerry owing to its remoteness from Dublin. In future the Judges of Assize in Munster are to hold Assizes twice yearly in Kerry as well as any other county in Munster." [no town specified]

1692-1760:[206]

All this guaranteed a sizable assembly in the assize town, which in turn led to the establishment of fairs, markets and auctions. The overall result was that the assizes could provide a substantial fillip to local trade, and competition often ensued between rival towns as to which would be the seat of the assizes ... Several counties, such as Kildare and Mayo, solved the problem of urban rivalries by holding the assizes alternatively in different locations. In others, a town may have retained the judicial primacy by precedent, long after its former glories had passed. Ballinrobe, for example, continued to be joint host of the County Mayo assizes despite being seen as no more than 'a very sorry village'.

Lewis 1837 says Castleisland was at one time the assize town for Kerry.[207] Might relate only to Liberty or Manor court? Assizes in Tralee in 1704.[208] Also says Earl of Desmond failed to prevent justices holding assizes at Tralee in 1576;[209] maybe County Desmond had assizes at Castleisland? Well S. J. Connolly says assizes only in Pale in 1570, extended countrywide after 1603.[210] Tralee assize and shire town in 1622.[211] Waters re Desmond 14C:[212]

The caput manor of the earls of Desmond is less clear [than Butlers' use of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary]. Prior to the fourteenth century, the family was based at Shanid but Dungarvan and Castleisland[fn 188] also became important administration centres. Shanid, however, may have retained official pride of place as 'Shanid Abu' (Shanid forever) was later the Desmonds' war cry. The central administration of the lordship, however, cannot be identified with a specific location as it was tied not to a fixed locality, but rather to the lord.
[fn 188] In the legal proceedings against Maurice fitz Thomas, he was often said to have been at Castleisland and Gerald fitz Maurice was said to have died there. Castleisland may have been the most secure Desmond fortification rather than the caput.

"In 1325 Diarmaid Mac Carthy was murdered in Tralee 'upon the bench before the Judges of Assize' by William Fitz Maurice" — anachronistic? legendary? Earliest source is Lodge 1754.[213] Recent sources just say "murdered" not assizes.[214][215] Diarmuid Ó Murchadha cites Annals of Innisfallen "and editor's note [Seán Mac Airt 1951] on same".[215] An [earlier edition has:

Diarmait Mac Carthaig, i.e. king of Desmumu, was slain by the son of Nicholas fitzMaurice and by other septs, viz. [by] the son of the bishop Ó Samradáin and the Riddels, accompanied by other families, viz. the Uí Chonchobuir and the Uí Fhinn(?). He was slain in the monastery of Tráig Lí, and was buried in Inis Faithlinn a fortnight after his death. And Cormac Mac Carthaig, i.e. his own brother, was proclaimed king in his stead by fitzThomas and by the Desmumu.

Butler 1921 cites:[216]

  • Cronnelly, History of the Clan Eoghan (Dublin, 1864) — p.163 cites Lodge 1754
  • Life and Letters of Florence Mac Carthy Mor [?recte Reagh] p.452 — less than Innisfallen
  • Geoffrey Keating ?genealgies — less than Innisfallen

1485-1534: "the liberty of Kerry (county Kerry north of Dingle Bay) administered from the liberty court at Dingle" (ref to Curtis) but clear that Desmond was mixing English and Irish rules.[217]

first W&M Act was 1570 12 Eliz. c.3 (Rot.Parl. c.7) corn standard measure in Leinster counties:

Countie of the citie of Dublin and the countie of Dublin. The citie Of Dublin.
The countie of Kildare. The towne of Kildare.
The countie of Lowthe. The towne of Dondalke.
The Queen's Countie. The towne of Maryborough.
The King's Countie. The towne of Phillipston.
The countie of Methe. The towne of Trymme.
The countie of Catherlagh. The towne of Catherlagh.
The countie of Westmethe. The towne of Mollingar.
The countie of the towne of Drogheda. The towne Of Drogheda.
The countie of Wexford. The towne of Wexford.

Weights and Measures Act 1708 4 Anne c.14 s.2

  • In the town of Dundalk for the county of Lowth.
  • In the town of Trim for the county of Meath.
  • In the town of Mullingar for the county of West-Meath.
  • In the town of Cavan for the county of Cavan.
  • In the town of Ardmagh for the county of Ardmagh.
  • In the town of Monaghan for the county of Monaghan.
  • In the town of Down-Patrick for the county of Down.
  • In the town of Carrickfergus for the county of Antrim.
  • In the town of Omagh for the county of Tyrone.
  • In the city of Londonderry for the city and county of Londonderry.
  • In the town of Lifford for the county of Donnegall.
  • In the town of Innifldllin for the county of Fermanagh.
  • In the town of Carloe for the county of Catherlogh.
  • In the town of Ennis for the county of Clare.
  • In the town of Cork for the city and county of Cork.
  • In the city-of Dublin for the city and county of Dublin.
  • In the town of Gallaway for the county of the town of Gallaway, and county of Gallaway.
  • In the town of Tralee for the county of Kerry.
  • In the town of Naas for the county of Kildare.
  • In the city of Kilkenny for the city and county of Kilkenny.
  • In the town of Phillipstown for the King's-county.
  • In the town of Karrickdrumrost for the county of Leitrim.
  • In the city of Limerick for the city and county of Limerick.
  • In the town of Longford for the county of Longford.
  • In the town of Ballinrobe for the county of Mayo.
  • In the town of Maryborrough for the Queens-county.
  • In the town of Roscommon for the county of Roscommon,
  • In the town of Sligoe for the county of Sligoe,
  • In the town of Clonmell for the county of Tipperary.
  • In the city of Waterford for the city and county of Waterford.
  • In the town of Wexford for the county of Wexford.
  • In the town of Wicklow for the county of Wicklow.

MPs in Dublin: Companion to History of the Irish parliament, 1692-1800 says that prior to a 1715 Act sheriffs could hold election anywhere; after that, only at the previous assize location. The statute is 2 Geo.1 c.19 s.5:

upon every election to be made of any knight or knights of the shire to serve in this present Parliament, or any future Parliament, the sheriff of the county where such election shall be made, shall proceed to election for the said county at the place, where the assizes for the said county, and in the county of Dublin where the sessions of peace for the same county, were last held

1763 3 Geo.III c.34:

s 87: And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after that a convenient piece or parcel of ground, lying and being in the shire or county town of any county within the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, shall be purchased, conveyed, or otherwise assured with the approbation of the grand jury at the assizes held for such county, to any person or persons, his or their heirs, upon trust, and to the intent that a publick ware-house, house or market-house should be erected and built thereon for the lodging in and exposing to sale any flaxen or hempen yarn, flax or hemp, flax-seed or hemp-seed, that then it shall and may be lawful to and for the grand jury of such county where such piece or parcel of ground shall be so purchased, or otherwise assured, for the use and to the intent aforesaid, at the general assizes to be held in and for such county, to present any sum or sums of money, not exceeding in the whole the sum of three hundred pounds, to be levied, raised, and paid in the fame and in like manner as other publick money is raised and paid in such county; and when such money is so raised and paid, the same to be applied in the erecting and building such publick ware-house or markethouse on such piece or parcel of ground for the several uses and purposes aforesaid; and after such ware-house or markethouse shall be built and erected, it shall and may be lawful to and for the grand jury of the said county, wherein such ware-house or market-house shall be so erected, at the general assizes to be held in and for such county, to present a sum, not exceeding the sum of fifteen pounds per annum, for the salary of an officer to attend such ware-house or market-house.
s 88: And whereas the assizes for some counties within the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, are held within the precincts or limits of counties of cities, and counties of towns, in places appointed and particularly provided for that purpose, and excluded from being part of such counties of cities, and counties of towns, by reason whereof it may happen, that no convenient ground can be purchased, or otherwise obtained for erecting and building such ware-house or market-house in the places, where such assizes are held, so as to be within the same county; and in case such disputes may arise, what town shall be deemed and taken to be the shire or county town: to prevent therefore such inconveniencies, and to obviate all such differences, be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the respective grand juries of such counties within the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, where the assizes are held within the precincts or limits of any county of a city, or county of a town, if a convenient piece or parcel of ground can be had or obtained in such county of a city, or county of a town, by purchase or other assurance to the purposes aforesaid, may present such sum or sums of money as aforesaid, for the building and erecting such publick ware-house or market-house for the said uses and purposes, and for the salary of the officer attending the same; and such ware-house or market-house, when built, shall be esteemed and taken to be the publick ware-house and markethouse of the county erecting the same, in as full a manner as if such ware-house or market-house was built in the sbiretown, and shall from time to time be repaired by such county by presentment of the grand jury, notwithstanding such ware-house or market-house lies in a different county; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

1765 5 Geo.III c.15:

s.17: And for the preventing the laying of dung, dirt, or other filth in the publick streets and lanes of cities or county towns, and for the more effectual cleansing and keeping the same clean, be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no person or persons whatsoever shall lay down, and suffer to remain above twenty-four hours, any dung, dirt, or other filth, in any street or lane in any city or county town, before his, her, or their dwelling house or houses, stables, buildings, or walls, or before the dwelling house, stables, buildings, or walls of any other person, or before the walls of churches, church yards, or other publick buildings; and if any person shall be convicted of any of the said offences before the mayor, or other magistrate of such city or county town, where such offence is committed, by the oath of one or more credible witness or witnesses, every such offender shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of five shillings, to be levied by distress and sale of the offenders goods, by warrant under the hand and seal of the mayor, or other magistrate of such city or county town, before whom such offender shall be so convicted.
s.18: Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every inhabitant in every city or county town, shall before nine of the clock in the morning of everyday (except Sunday) sweep and cleanse, or cause to be swept and cleansed, before their respective houses, buildings, and walls in the streets of the said cities or county towns, and in such lanes as carriages can pass through, to the end that the dirt maybe ready to be carried away by the respective scavengers, upon pain to forfeit for every such offence the sum of one shilling; the said offence to be heard and determined, and the said penalty to be levied in the manner herein before mentioned; and the scavengers in the laid cities and county towns, shall, three days in every week, to be appointed by the respective mayors in the said cities, and magistrates of county towns, carry away all the dirt and filth out of all and every the streets and lanes through which carriages can pass, in the said cities and county towns, upon pain of forfeiting the sum of ten shillings for every neglect ; the said forfeiture to be heardand determined, and the penalty levied in the manner herein before mentioned.
s.19: And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the said several penalties, after deducting the expences of levying the fame, snail be applied by the respective magistrates, before whom the same shall be recovered, for the use of the prisoners for debt in the respective gaols of the said cities and county towns.

1765: 5 Geo.III c.20 An Act for ending and establishing Publick Infirmaries or Hospitals in this Kingdom. s.1:

..for the purpose of erecting or establishing publick infirmaries or hospitals in the several and respective counties herein after mentioned (that is to fay) in the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, Tyrone, Carlow, Kilkenny, King's County, Longford, Lowth, Leitrim, Queen's County, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Galvay, Roscommon, and Sligo; the said several infirmaries or hospitals to be erected or established in such places respectively, as shall be approved of by the respective corporations of said counties, in the several and respective county town6, or at a distance not exceeding one mile from the court house in the county town of each and every of the said counties; excepting the counties of Meath, Antrim, Donegal, K2dare, Cork, Mayo, and Tipperary; the infirmaries or hospitals for the said last mentioned counties, to be erected and established in the several and respective towns hereinafter mentioned; (that is to fay) the infirmary or hospital for the county of Meath to be erected or established in the town of Navan in that county; for the county of Antrim in the town of Lisburne in that county; for the county of Cork in the town of Mallow in that county; for the county of Mayo in the town of Castlebar in that county; for the county of Donegal in the town of Letterkenny in that county; for the county of Kildare in the town of Kildare in that county 5 for the county of Tipperary in the city of Cashel in that county.
  • This proves the named towns were not county towns; if I can find where the relevant infirmaries were built in the other county, it demonstrates where the county town is.

1767 7 Geo.III c.8:

s.4: And whereas the trustees appointed for regulating the infirmary in the county of Clare, have not yet been able to obtain a proper site tor the laid infirmary, and it is apprehended, that no proper place can be found within the bounds prescribed by the said act : be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That it (hall and may be lawful for the said trustees to agree for and appoint any proper place for the site of the (aid infirmary within three miles of the town of Ennis, the same being the assize town of the said county.
s.5: And whereas by the said act, passed the last session, the infirmary for the county of Donegal was directed to be erected or established in the town of Letterkenny, which has been found an inconvenient situation; and the infirmary of the King's county was established at Philipstown, which has also been found an inconvenient situation: be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the infirmary or hospital for the said county of Donegal maybe erected or established in the town of Lifford, being the county town, and more central and convenient to the best inhabited part of the said county ; and that the infirmary of the King's county may be erected and established at Tullamore, being a more healthy situation.

1773 unpassed bill to make Antrim shire town of County Antrim.[218]

1780s unpassed bills to make Tullamore shire town of King's County by Sir William Parsons, 4th Baronet (1784)[219] and John Lloyd (1786).[220]

Grose 1791:[221]

Here (Swords, Dublin) was formerly a palace of the archbishop of Dublin. ... There was a sessions-house, and one knight of the shire was forme[r]ly elected in the town.

1793 Militia Act s.15 gives number of militia for each county, with provision for counties corporate to merge with neighbouring county-at-large; s.16 says general meetings to be "holden in some principal town of every such county" [emphasis added].

1802 43 Geo.III c.2 s.9:

And be it further enacted, That the several Treasurers of the respective Counties and Counties of Cities as aforesaid, shall collect and receive the said several Sums, and pay the same to the Collector of his Majesty's Revenue for such County or County of a City, or in case any County be divided into two or more Districts, with two or more Collectors, then to the Collector of that Part of such County in which the County Town is situate; and every such Collector shall and he is hereby required to give a Receipt for all Sums of Money that (hall be so paid to him as aforesaid; and such Receipt shall be lodged among the Records of such County and mall be a Discharge and Acquittance to such County for all such Men as shall be so raised for the Time for which they mail be enrolled to serve as aforesaid; unless Vacancies shall occur by Death or Desertion, in which Case it shall and may be lawful for the said several Colonels or other Commanding Officers to procure and enrol, from Time to Time, Volunteers to sill any Vacancies that may happen by such Death or Desertion, and pay to such Volunteer a Sum not exceeding two Guineas for each Man, out of the Stock Purse of the said Regiment; and the several Grand Juries, at the respective ensuing Affixes shall, on the Certificate of such Colonel or other Commanding Officer, stating the Death or Desertion of such Man or Men, in like Manner present the said Sum or Sums of Money to reimburse the said Colonel or other Commanding Officer.

1803 43 Geo.III c.88 s.22:

And be it further enacted, That the Arms, Accoutrements, Clothing and other Stores, belonging to every Regiment, Battalion, or Corps of Militia in Ireland, when not embodied, shall be kept in some convenient House or Place in the County Town, or in some other Town within the County, which Town the Lord Lieutenant or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland for the Time being shall direct; and it shall be lawful for the said Lord Lieutenant or other Chief Governor or Governors to order and direct a convenient* and proper Place for that Purpose to be provided or built in the County Town, or such other Town as shall be so appointed, if such convenient and proper Place cannot otherwise be found or procured therein; and the Hire or Cost of such House or Place shall be defrayed by the County, and the necessary Sum for that Purpose shall be raised by Presentment of the Grand Jury of the said County, and which Presentment the Grand Jury of the County is hereby authorized and required to pass on a Certificate signed by the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland for the Time being, and specifying the Cost incurred or to be incurred in building such House or Place, or the Rent agreed to be paid for the fame; which Certificate shall be transmitted by such Chief Secretary to the Clerk of the Crown for such County at any Time prior to the first Day of the Assizes for such County, or if in the County or County of the City of Dublin, then prior to the first Day of the presenting Term: Provided, that in no Case any greater Rent than forty Pounds Irish Currency shall be presented by such Grand Jury for the annual Rent of such Place, nor a greater Sum than two hundred Pounds Irish Currency shall be required for building such House: Provided also, that the Grand Juries of such Counties shall be entitled to purchase Ground for building and erecting such House in the same Manner as they are now by Law entitled to purchase Grounds for building County Gaols.

1804 44 Geo III c.34 s.4:

And be it further enacted, That if the Treasurer of any County, County of a Town or City, shall have advanced any Money to the Families of Militia Men ... and shall produce to the Collector of His Majesty's Excise for the District in which the Shire Town of such County, or such Town or City whereof he is Treasurer shall be situate, an Account of the same ..., every such Collector shall within Three Months after the passing of this Act, repay the Amount ... to such Treasurer

1817 57 Geo III c.107 Gabbett, Joseph (1812). A digested abridgment, and comparative view, of the statute law of England and Ireland: to the year 1811, inclusive : analytically arranged in the order of Sir W. Blackstone's commentaries : with a chronological table of the statutes, and an index to the work. Graisberry and Campbell. pp. 67–9. Retrieved 28 August 2011.:

s.7 ..every such surveyor shall be deemed to be an overseer of all public works in the county, &c. and shall certify bis opinion upon such works as are herein-after specified; and shall keep an office open for his regular attendance on business in the county town of the county
s.11 .. in such report all roads (not being turnpike roads) shall be classed under the 3 following heads; 1st the direct or post roads, being such as form an immediate line of communication between the county town and the city of Dublin, or between such county town and any other county town, or between such county town and any bays or any seaport, or port or place of exportation, situate on any navigable river; 2dly. cross roads, being such as form an immediate line of communication between the county town and any market town, or between one market town and another, or between any market town and any bog, or any sea-port or place of exportation situate on any navigable river; 3rdly. private or narrow roads communicating between market towns and villages, or between villages and villages:

1810 Geography distinguishes "shire town" [specified for all counties pp.34–41] and "assizes town" [at least two diverge: Ballinrobe and Naas ranked shire ahead of alternate assizes towns Castlebar and Athy].[222]

1820 Commission on Grand Juries

  • I have two—one in the County Court-house, Castlebar, the other in Ballinrobe, which was a County Town

CSO/RP/1820/1231

Letter from Lord Tyrawly, Castle Lackin, Rathlacken, County Mayo, to |William H Gregory, Under Secretary of Ireland, Dublin Castle, expressing strong objection to removal of the assizes from town of Ballinrobe to Castlebar, ‘a Tale of woe that harrows up my Soul’: encloses letter from Courtney Kenny, Ballinrobe, County Mayo, to Charles Knox, Castle Lackin, County Mayo, reflecting on reported alteration of assizes venue, with observation ‘such a step would be fatal to the Town and a serious draw back both upon the Consequence and value of Lord Tyrawly’s Property’; also encloses letter from George Melvin, Dublin, to Tyrawly, indicating that the next assizes has been ‘posted’ for Castlebar, the reasons given being a need for accommodation for the judges and inadequate jail facilities to hold prisoners at Ballinrobe.

Butler 2015:

Between the [1798] rebellion and Waterloo (1815) some fifteen new assize courthouses were built or planned all around the country[fn 30 p.137: Derry, Omagh, Armagh, Dundalk, Trim, Athy, Naas, Portlaoise, Philipstown (now Daingean), Galway, Clonmel, Carlow, Wexford, Limerick and Cork]
the reshaping of the Board of Works in 1831 [and] the Grand Jury (Ireland) Act of 1833 [led to a] drastic limitation on the powers of [the] hitherto all-powerful [Grand Jury]. ... Some of the most recurring disputes of the 1830s were over the locations for actually holding the assizes. ... In King's County (now Offaly), the dispute was between Philipstown (now Daingean) and Tullamore and it had been running since at least 1786, but was re-energised in the early 1820s with the decision to build a new county gaol in Tullamore, the hometown of Charles Bury, Lord Tullamore. After much wrangling, an 1832 act granted victory to the Tullamore interest, and Bury planned a new courthouse for his town to be built alongside the new gaol. [pp. 126-7] [fn 75 p.139 There were also disputes in Tipperary and Waterford]
The overwhelming bulk of Ireland's courthouse building dates instead to the early nineteenth century,94 a period marked by the powers of an ancien régime grand-jury system which looks back more to eighteenth-century trends of conspicuous consump tion, elite-led town improvement, and private social function. [p. 135]

1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4) c. 60 King's County Assizes Act 1832

AN ACT for holding the Assizes for the King's County in Ireland, Twice in every Year, at Tullamoore [sic], instead of Philipstown.

1835: 5 & 6 Will.4 c.26: An Act for the Appointment of convenient Places for the holding of Assizes in Ireland. [21st August 1835.][223]

Grand Jury (Ireland) Act 1837 s.14 allows "the presentment sessions for the county at large" to be somewhere other than the "county court house" [?defined by statute or tradition? assizes venue and/or what else?] because "in many counties in Ireland the county court house is not centrally situated in regard to the county"

Lewis 1837 says Down assizes at Downpatrick but Newry is also an "assize town".[224] Gillespie say Newry was assize town (doesnt say whether for Armagh or Down) until 1628.[225] An alleged 1628 letter from Charles I of England to Lord Lieutenant Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland directing assizes to be at Newry.[226] That's the same one referenced by Gillespie, in Calendar p.416:[227]

And whereas we are informed that the town of Newry is much impaired, not only by impositions laid upon it, but also by the removing of the assizes from thence; we being careful to give as much aid to that town as conveniently may be, do advise and require you that the summer assizes of that county may be constantly kept there yearly.

and Gillepsie also refs p558:[228]

1847 parliamentary report on quarter sessions in Ireland, with distance from the county town.[229]

1850 table of county inspectors of the Irish Constabulary shows not all were based in the county town;[230] likely a central location was more important than communication with assizes. (Also Galway and Cork ridings had separate inspectors.)

The term county capital is also used. Despite the fact that Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, it is not the county town of any county. Prior to its separation into a county borough, the borough of Belfast straddled the border between counties Antrim and Down.

Lewis on Omagh:[231]

It is now the county town, a distinction formerly enjoyed by Dungannon, but at what time the change took place has not been ascertained, farther than that it occurred previously to 1768.

Whereas a 1765 geography says "Dungannon, which is reckoned the county town".[232]

The town of Castle-island, which was formerly the capital of the county, has declined since Tralee became the county town.[233]

Mangnall 1822 gives some odd capitals, Just Plain Wrong I think:[234]

  • Donegal. Ballyshannon, Raphoe, Donegal, Lifford.
  • Londonderry. Londonderry, Coleraine.
  • Antrim. Carrickfergus, Belfast, Antrim, Lisburn, Ballymenagh, Connor.
  • Down. Down-patrick, Dromore, Newry, Newtown, Killyleagh, Donaghadee..
  • Tyrone. Dungannon, Clogher, Omagh. "he capital is. Dungannon ... At Omagh the county assizes are held:"
  • Fermanagh. Enniskillen, Newtown, Callow Hill.
  • Armagh. Armagh, Charlemont, Lurgan.
  • Monaghan. Monaghan, Castle Blaney, Carrickmocross.
  • Cavan. Cavan, Kilmore, Belturbet, Coote-Hill
  • Dublin. Dublin, Swords, Newcastle.
  • East Meath. Trim, Duleek, Kells, Navan, Ardbraccan. "Trim, the county town"
  • West Meath. Mullingar, Kilbeggan, Athlone.
  • Louth. Drogheda, Carlingford, Dundalk, Louth. "The capital, Drogheda ... Dundalk, the assize town"
  • Longford. Longford, Granard.
  • King's County. Philip's Town, Birr, or Parson's Town. "Philip's Town, where the assizes are held, is considered the capital"
  • Queen's County. Maryborough, Portarlington, Mount-Mellick, Montrath.
  • Kildare. Kildare, Naas, Athy, Maynooth, CastleDermot. "The capital, Kildare ... Naas, alternately the shire town with Athy,"
  • Wicklow. Wicklow, Blessington, Baltinglass, Arklow. Carlow. Carlow, Leighlin.
  • Kilkenny. Kilkenny, Thomas Town, Castle Comer. Wexford. Wexford, Ferns, Enniscorthy, New-Ross.
  • Waterford. Waterford, Lismore, Dungarvon.
  • Cork. Cork, Kinsale, Youghall.
  • Kerry. Dingle, Tralee, Ardfert, Aghadoe.
  • Limerick. Limerick, Killtnallock, Adair, Newcastle, Askeyton.
  • Clare. Ennis. Clare, Killaloe, Kilfenora.
  • Tipperary. Clonmel, Cashel, Tipperary, Silver Mines. "The chief place, Cashel"
  • Galway. Tuam, Galway, Athenry, Clonfert, Eyrecourt, Ballinasloe. "Tuam, an archbishopric, though a small decayed place, is the capital"
  • Mayo. Castlebar, Ballingrobe, Killala. "Castlebar, the assize town and capital"
  • Leitrim. Carrick, Leitrim, James-Town.
  • Sligo. Sligo, Achonry.
  • Roscommon. Elphin, Roscommon, Tulsk, AbbeyBoyle. "The capital, Roscommon, is a small town, of little trade. — Elphin, a bishopric, founded by Saint Patrick in the fifth century, has nothing to attract attention but the bishop's palace. "

Parl Rept gives locations of County Gaols in 1826. Note County Dublin was Kilmainham Gaol.[235]

Irish Reform Act 1832 s.14 "after the Commencement of this Act a Special Session, for the Purpose of registering Votes for each County ... shall be holden in each such County ... on such Day or Days and at such Places respectively as the Lord Lieutenant or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland shall appoint"

Parl Gazz:

Kilmainham is the place at which members of parliament for the county of Dublin are elected; and it possesses, in some other respects, the practical character of the county town.[236]
Clare was, at one time, the county-town of co. Clare.[237]

Mayo: "formerly" (in 1840) Ballinrobe alternated with Castlebar.[238] 1806 election and 1807 Lent Assizes were there.[239]

County Antrim:[240]

Belfast has been recently proclaimed the county town, a rank formerly held by Carrickfergus. The assizes are held at Belfast, and the county prison is there. The county is in the north-east circuit. Quarter sessions are held at Antrim, Bally mena, Ballymoney, Belfast, and Carrickfergus : at each of these towns there is a bridewell The county infirmary is at Lisburn ; the district lunatic asylum, to which the county is entitled to send 23 patients, is at Belfast.

Carrickfergus:[241]

The gaol, built on the site of the above-mentioned monastery, was formerly the county of Antrim prison. The courthouse, which adjoins the gaol, is a neat building of modern erection, and when Carrickfergus was the county town of Antrim (which it ceased to be in 1850), the assizes were held here.

1857: writ of election sent to High Sheriff of Leitrim at Carrick-on-Shannon. [3]. Dunno if the Sheriff had an official address in the county town; check this 1835 file of correspondence with various sheriffs.

Contrast:

  • 1883 "the Donegal man dwelling at Malin head has to pass Derry by and go seventy miles south-west to tenth-rate Ballyshannon as his capital, Lifford intervening as the assize town"[242]
  • 1823 "The county town is Lifford; but Ballyshannon is the principal one."[243]

Murphy, Donal A. (1994). The two Tipperarys: the national and local politics, devolution and self-determination, of the unique 1838 division into two ridings, and the aftermath. Nenagh, Co. Tipperary: Relay. Retrieved 12 April 2020.

  • Discusses possibility of moving assizes from Clonmel
  • Appendix on Dungarvan vs Waterford; failed 1835–1838 agitation; successful 1899: 1900 council moved, 1903 County Secretary, but as of 1994 County Registrar still in Waterford city. (likewise Meath registrar in Trim)

After Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order, Schedule sec 36(3):[244]

The meeting of such council, or of any committee thereof, may be held at such place, either within or without their county or district, as the council from time to time direct.

HC Deb 05 August 1898 vol 64 c280:

J. J. O'Shee: whether, under 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 26, which provides that the place of holding assizes shall be as directed by the Lord Lieutenant in Council, or under the Local Government (Ireland) Bill, the Lord Lieutenant in Council has any authority to fix or alter the place of meetings of the county councils?
John Atkinson: Under Article 34 (3) of the Adaptation Order in Council the meetings of a county council may be held at such place as the county council front time to time direct. The enactment referred to in the third paragraph relates to the fixing of places for holding assizes, and will not affect the place of meetings of county councils.


County County town
County Antrim Antrim Belfast Carrickfergus
County Armagh Armagh
County Carlow Carlow
County Cavan Cavan
County Clare Ennis
County Cork Cork
County Donegal Lifford
County Down Downpatrick
County Dublin Dublin
South Dublin Tallaght
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Dún Laoghaire
County Fermanagh Enniskillen
Fingal Swords
County Galway Galway
County Kerry Tralee
County Kildare Naas
County Kilkenny Kilkenny
County Laois (formerly Queen's County) Portlaoise (formerly known as Maryborough)
County Leitrim Carrick-on-Shannon
County Limerick Limerick
County Londonderry Coleraine
County Longford Longford
County Louth Dundalk
County Mayo Castlebar
County Meath Navan (previously Trim).
County Monaghan Monaghan
County Offaly (formerly King's County) Tullamore (since 1835), originally Philipstown
County Roscommon Roscommon
County Sligo Sligo
County Tipperary Clonmel (South Tipperary) and Nenagh (North Tipperary) since 1898,

previously Cashel and Clonmel.

North Tipperary Nenagh
South Tipperary Clonmel
County Tyrone Omagh
County Waterford Dungarvan[245] (previously Waterford).
County Westmeath Mullingar
County Wexford Wexford
County Wicklow Wicklow

Assizes[edit]

From 1558–1714 Home Circuit had most variable locations.[246]

Town County 1558–1714[246]
Newcastle upon Tyne Northumberland Major
Carlisle Cumberland Major
Durham Durham Major
Appleby Westmorland Major
Kendal Westmorland Minor
Lancaster Lancashire Major
York Yorkshire Major
Hull Yorkshire (East Riding) Minor
Lincoln Lincolnshire Major
Derby Derbyshire Major
Melbourne Derbyshire Minor
Ashbourne Derbyshire Minor
Nottingham Nottinghamshire Major
Newark Nottinghamshire Minor
Leicester Leicestershire Major
Loughborough Leicestershire Minor
Stafford Staffordshire Major
Lichfield Staffordshire Minor
Wolverhampton Staffordshire Minor
Shrewsbury Shropshire Major
Bridgnorth Shropshire Minor
Warwick Warwickshire Major
Coventry Warwickshire Major
Worcester Worcestershire Major
Pershore Worcestershire Minor
Evesham Worcestershire Minor
Gloucester Gloucestershire Major
Tewkesbury Gloucestershire Minor
Hereford Herefordshire Major
Monmouth Monmouthshire Major
Abergavenny Monmouthshire Minor
Chepstow Monmouthshire Minor
Bristol County of City Major
Wells Somerset Major
Taunton Somerset Major
Chard Somerset Major
Bath Somerset Minor
Salisbury Wiltshire Major
Warminster Wiltshire Minor
Devizes Wiltshire Minor
Amesbury Wiltshire Minor
Fisherton Anger Wiltshire Minor
Exeter Devon Major
Tiverton Devon Minor
Launceston Cornwall Major
Dorchester Dorset Major
Sherborne Dorset Minor
Blandford Forum Dorset Minor
Winchester Hampshire Major
Andover Hampshire Minor
Reading Berkshire Major
Abingdon Berkshire Major
Oxford Oxfordshire Major
Henley Oxfordshire Minor
Wallingford Oxfordshire Minor
Burford Oxfordshire Minor
Buckingham Buckinghamshire Major
Aylesbury Buckinghamshire Major
High Wycombe Buckinghamshire Minor
Stony Stratford Buckinghamshire Minor
Tickford Buckinghamshire Minor
Little Brickhill Buckinghamshire Minor
Northampton Northamptonshire Major
Wellingborough Northamptonshire Minor
Bedford Bedfordshire Major
Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire Minor
Cambridge Cambridgeshire Major
Royston Hertfordshire Minor
Bury St. Edmunds Suffolk (East) Major
Newmarket Suffolk Minor
Stowmarket Suffolk Minor
Thetford Norfolk Major
Norwich Norfolk Major
Huntingdon Huntingdonshire Major
Oakham Rutland Major
Hertford Hertfordshire Major (Hertford Castle)
Bishop's Stortford Hertfordshire Minor (Elizabeth)
Hitchin Hertfordshire Minor (Elizabeth)
St Albans Hertfordshire Minor (Elizabeth, town gaol delivery)
Colchester Essex Yes
Braintree Essex Yes
Witham Essex Yes
Chelmsford Essex Major
Brentwood Essex Yes
Southwark Surrey Yes
Kingston-upon-Thames Surrey Yes
Reigate Surrey Minor (chapel of St Thomas)
Dorking Surrey Yes
Guildford Surrey Yes
Croydon Surrey Yes
Greenwich Kent (West) Yes
Sevenoaks Kent (West) Yes
Dartford Kent (West) Yes
Gravesend Kent (West) Yes
Rochester Kent (West) Yes
Maidstone Kent (East) Major
Canterbury Kent (East) Yes
Lewes Sussex (East) Yes
Horsham Sussex (West) Yes
East Grinstead Sussex (West) Major (Winter)

EB1911[edit]

Maps, with county towns underlined: England and Wales (Vol.9 inter pp.408-9) Ireland (Vol.13 inter pp.743-4) Scotland (Vol.24 inter pp.412-3

Aberdeen Scotland 1/ABERDEEN, a royal burgh, city and county of a city, capital of Aberdeenshire 1/ABERDEENSHIRE The county town, Aberdeen Anglesey or Anglesea Wales 2/ANGLESEY, or ANGLESEA assizes are held at Beaumaris, the only municipal borough 3/BEAUMARIS, a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Anglesey Antrim Ireland 3/BELFAST, a city, county and parliamentary borough, the capital of the province of Ulster, and county town of county Antrim 2/ANTRIM Belfast though constituting a separate county ranks as the metropolis of the district. The constabulary force has its headquarters at Ballymena. The assize town is Belfast, and quarter sessions are held at Ballymena, Ballymoney, Belfast, Larne and Lisburn. 5/CARRICKFERGUS Carrickfergus was a parliamentary borough until 1885; and a county of a town till 1898, having previously (till 1850) been the county town of county Antrim. But its importance was sapped by the vicinity of Belfast Argyll Scotland 14/INVERARAY, a royal and municipal burgh, the county town of Argyllshire 2/ARGYLLSHIRE The chief towns are Campbeltown (population in 1901, 8286), Dunoon (6779) and Oban (5427) ... there are resident sheriffs-substitute at Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban Armagh Ireland 2/ARMAGH Armagh (a city and the county town) 2/ARMAGH, a city and market town, and the county town of Co. Armagh Ayr Scotland 3/AYR, a royal, municipal and police burgh and seaport, and county town of Ayrshire 3/AYRSHIRE Ayr (the county town) Banff Scotland 3/BANFF, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport and capital of Banffshire, Scotland Bedfordshire England 3/BEDFORD, a municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Bedfordshire Berkshire England 3/BERKSHIRE Reading, the county town and a county borough Berwick Scotland 3/BERWICKSHIRE Lauder is the only royal burgh, and Duns the county town, a status, however, which was held by Greenlaw from 1696 to 1853, after which date it was shared by both towns until conferred on Duns alone. ... Berwickshire forms a sheriffdom with Roxburgh and Selkirk shires, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Duns, who sits also at Greenlaw, Coldstream, Ayton and Lauder ... [Berwick] was finally ceded to England in 1482 12/GREENLAW It was the county town from 1696 to 1853, when for several years it shared this dignity with Duns, which, however, is now the sole capital. Brecon or Brecknock Wales 4/BRECON, or BRECKNOCK, a market town and municipal borough, the capital of Breconshire, Wales 4/BRECONSHIRE, or BRECKNOCKSHIRE The only municipal borough is Brecon, which is the county town Buckinghamshire England 4/BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Buckingham, the county town ... assizes are held at Aylesbury 3/AYLESBURY Aylesbury is the assize town for the county, though Buckingham is the county town. Bute Scotland 23/ROTHESAY, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and the chief town of the county and island of Bute 4/BUTE, or BUTESHIRE Buteshire and Renfrewshire form one sheriffdom, with a sheriff-substitute resident in Rothesay who also sits periodically at Brodick and Millport. The circuit courts are held at Inveraray [Argyllshire]. Caithness Scotland 28/WICK, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport and county town of Caithness 26/THURSO ... was the seat of the sheriff courts of the county till they were removed to Wick in 1828 4/CAITHNESS The chief towns are Wick (pop. in 1901, 7911) and Thurso (3723). Caithness unites with Orkney and Shetland to form a sheriffdom, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Wick, who sits also at Thurso and Lybster. Cambridgeshire England 5/CAMBRIDGESHIRE Cambridge, the county town Cardigan Wales 5/CARDIGAN county town of Cardiganshire Carlow Ireland 5/CARLOW, the county town of Co. Carlow Carmarthen Wales 5/CARMARTHEN county town of Carmarthenshire, and a county of itself Carnarvon Wales 5/CARNARVON the county town of Carnarvonshire Cavan Ireland 5/CAVAN Cavan (pop. 2822, the county town) Cheshire England 6/CHESTER, an episcopal city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Cheshire 6/CHESHIRE Chester, the county town, is a city, county of a city, and county borough Clackmannan Scotland 6/CLACKMANNAN, the county town of Clackmannanshire 6/CLACKMANNANSHIRE Clackmannan forms a sheriffdom with Stirling and Dumbarton shires, and a sheriff-substitute sits at Alloa Clare Ireland 6/CLARE Ennis (pop. 5093, the county town) Cork Ireland 7/CORK The principal towns are Cork (pop. 76,122, a county of a city) ... the chief ports are Cork and Queenstown. ... Assizes are held at Cork Cornwall England 4/BODMIN, a market town and municipal borough in the Bodmin parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, the county town 7/CORNWALL Bodmin (pop. 5353), the county town ... assizes are held at Bodmin. ... The boroughs of Bodmin, Falmouth, Helston, Launceston, Liskeard, Penryn, Penzance, St Ives and Truro have separate commissions of the peace, and Penzance has a separate court of quarter sessions. ... The shire court was held at Launceston except from about 1260 to 1386, when it was held at Lostwithiel. In 1716 the summer assize was transferred to Bodmin. Since 1836 both assizes have been held at Bodmin. Cromarty Scotland 7/CROMARTY Before the union of the shires of Ross and Cromarty, it was the county town of Cromartyshire Cumberland England 7/CUMBERLAND Carlisle (pop. 45,480), a city and the county town Denbigh Wales 8/DENBIGH (Dinbych), a municipal and (with Holt, Ruthin and Wrexham) contributory parliamentary borough, market town and county town of Denbighshire 8/DENBIGHSHIRE Ruthin, where assizes are held Derbyshire England 8/DERBY, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Derbyshire 8/DERBYSHIRE Derby, a county borough and the county town Devonshire England 10/EXETER EXETER, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Devonshire 8/DEVONSHIRE (DEVON) Devonport, a county borough (70,437), Exeter, a city and county borough (47,185) ... assizes are held at Exeter Donegal Ireland 8/DONEGAL Lifford (pop. 446), the county town, is practically a suburb of Strabane 8/DONEGAL, a small seaport and market town of Co. Donegal, Ireland (not, as its name would suggest, the county town, which is Lifford) Dorsetshire England 8/DORSETSHIRE (DORSET) Dorchester, the county town 8/DORCHESTER, a market town and municipal borough and the county town of Dorsetshire Down Ireland 8/DOWN Downpatrick (2993 ; the county town) 8/DOWNPATRICK, a market town and the county town of Co. Down Dublin Ireland 8/DUBLIN Assizes are held in Dublin, and quarter sessions also in the capital, and at Balbriggan, Kilmainham, Kingstown and Swords. ... The city of Dublin constitutes a separate county. Dumbarton Scotland 8/DUMBARTON, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport, and county town of Dumbartonshire 8/DUMBARTONSHIRE Dumbarton, the county town Dumfries Scotland 8/DUMFRIES a royal and parliamentary burgh and capital of the county, Dumfriesshire 8/DUMFRIESSHIRE Dumfries, the county town Durham England 8/DURHAM, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Durham Edinburgh Scotland 8/EDINBURGH, a city and royal burgh, and county of itself, the capital of Scotland, and county town of Edinburghshire or Midlothian Elgin (or Moray) Scotland 9/ELGIN, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Elginshire 8/ELGINSHIRE Elginshire is included in one sheriffdom with Inverness and Nairn, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Elgin. Essex England 9/ESSEX assizes are held at Chelmsford. 6/CHELMSFORD, a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Essex Fermanagh Ireland 10/FERMANAGH Enniskillen (the county town, pop. 5412) 9/ENNISKILLEN [INNISKILLING], a market town and the county town of county Fermanagh Fife Scotland 7/CUPAR, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and capital of the county of Fifeshire ... Among the chief buildings are the town hall, county buildings ... Cupar is an agricultural and legal centre. 10/FIFE The chief towns are the Anstruthers (pop. in 1.901, 4233), Buckhaven (8828), Burntisland (4846), Cowdenbeath(7908), Cupar (4511), Dunfermline(25,250), Dysart (3562), Kelty (3986), Kirkcaldy (34,079), Leslie (3587), Leven (5577), Lochgelly (5472), Lumphinnans (2071), Newport (2869), St Andrews (7621), Tayport (3325) and Wemyss (2522). 2/ANSTRUTHER a seaport of Fifeshire, Scotland. It comprises the royal and police burghs of Anstruther Easter (pop. noo), Anstruther Wester (501) and Kilrcnny (2542) 4/BURNTISLAND. a royal, municipal and police burgh of Fife 7/COWDENBEATH, a police burgh, Fifeshire 8/DUNFERMLINE a royal, municipal and police burgh of Fifeshire 15/KIRKCALDY a royal, municipal and police burgh and seaport of Fifeshire 16/LEVEN, a police burgh of Fifeshire 23/ST ANDREWS, a city, royal burgh, university town and seaport of Fifeshire Flint Wales 10/FLINT, or FLINTSHIRE assizes being held at Mold 10/FLINT, a municipal borough and the county town of the above ... The county gaol here, as at Haverfordwest, occupied an angle of the castle, was removed to Mold, and is now Chester Castle (jointly with Cheshire.) 18/MOLD a market town, contributory parliamentary borough of Flintshire ... Mold county gaol, bought in 1880 by Jesuits expelled from France, was by them named St Germanus's House. Forfar Scotland 10/FORFAR, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and capital of the county of Forfarshire 10/FORFARSHIRE It is a sheriffdom and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Dundee and another at Forfar, the county town, and courts are held also at Arbroath Galway Ireland 11/GALWAY, a seaport, parliamentary borough and the county town of county Galway Glamorgan Wales 12/GLAMORGANSHIRE both assizes and quarter-sessions are held at Cardiff and Swansea alternately 5/CARDIFF, a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, seaport and market-town, and the county town of Glamorganshire Gloucestershire England 12/GLOUCESTER a city, county of a city, municipal and parliamentary borough and port, and the county town of Gloucestershire Haddington Scotland 12/HADDINGTON, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Haddingtonshire Hampshire England 12/HAMPSHIRE (or COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON, abbreviated HANTS) ... assizes are held at Winchester ... Southampton (a county in itself) ... Hampshire was among the earliest shires to be created, and must have received its name before the revival of Winchester in the latter half of the 7th century. ... The sheriff's court and the assizes and quarter sessions for the county were formerly held at Winchester, but in 1831 the county was divided into 14 petty sessional divisions; the quarter sessions for the county were held at Andover; and Portsmouth, Southampton and Winchester had separate jurisdiction. Southampton was made a county by itself with a separate sheriff in 1447. 28/WINCHESTER a city and municipal and parliament borough of Hampshire ... The county hall embodies remains of the Norman castle 1/ANDOVER, a market-town and municipal borough in the Andover parliamentary division of Hampshire 22/PORTSMOUTH, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and seaport of Hampshire Herefordshire England 13/HEREFORD, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Herefordshire 13/HEREFORDSHIRE assizes are held at Hereford. Hertfordshire England 13/HERTFORD, a market-town and municipal borough, and the county town of Hertfordshire 13/HERTFORDSHIRE assizes are held at Hertford Huntingdonshire England 13/HUNTINGDON, a market town and municipal borough and the county town of Huntingdonshire 13/HUNTINGDONSHIRE Huntingdon, the county town ... assizes are held at Huntingdon. Inverness Scotland 14/INVERNESS, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport and county town of Inverness-shire 14/INVERNESS-SHIRE the county town, along with Forres, Fortrose and Nairn, belongs to the Inverness district group of parliamentary burghs. Inverness forms a sheriffdom with Elgin and Nairn, and there are resident sheriffs-substitute at Inverness, Fort William, Portree and Lochmaddy. Kent England 15/KENT The municipal boroughs are Bromley (pop. 27,354), Canterbury, a city and county borough (24,889), Chatham (37,057), Deal (10,581), Dover (41,794), Faversham (11,290), Folkestone (30,650), Gillingham (42,530), Gravesend (27,196), Hythe (5557), Lydd (2675), Maidstone (33,516), Margate (23,118), New Romney (1328), Queenborough (1544), Ramsgate (27,733), Rochester, a city (30,590), Sandwich (3170), Tenterden (3243), Tunbridge Wells (33,373). ... assizes are held at Maidstone ... in Saxon times the shiremoot met three times a year on Penenden Heath near Maidstone ... The assizes for the county were held in the reign of Henry III. at Canterbury and Rochester, and also at the Lowey of Tonbridge under a mandate from the Crown as a distinct liberty; afterwards at different intervals at East Greenwich, Dartford, Maidstone, Milton-next-Gravesend and Sevenoaks; from the Restoration to the present day they have been held at Maidstone. 17/MAIDSTONE, a market town and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Kent ...Its position in the centre of Kent gave it an early importance; the shire-moot was held on Penenden Heath in the nth century, and Maidstone was an c town in the reign of Edward I. Kerry Ireland 15/KERRY Tralee (the county town, pop. 9867) Kildare Ireland 15/KILDARE Assizes are held at Naas, and quarter sessions at Athy, Kildare, Maynooth and Naas. ... Kildare (the county town) 15/KILDARE, a market town and the county town of county Kildare Kilkenny Ireland 15/KILKENNY the capital of county Kilkenny Kincardine Scotland 15/KINCARDINESHIRE, or THE MEARNS The chief town is Stonehaven ... By an extraordinary reversion of fortune the town which gave the shire its name has practically vanished. 25/STONEHAVEN (locally Stanehive), a police burgh, seaport and county town of Kincardineshire King's Offaly Ireland 15/KING'S COUNTY Tullamore (the county town, pop. 4639) ... Philipstown near Tullamore was formerly the capital of the county and was the centre of the kingdom of Offaly. Kinross Scotland 15/KINROSS-SHIRE Kinross is the county town ... It forms a sheriffdom with Fifeshire and a sheriff-substitute sits at Kinross. Kirkcudbright Scotland 15/KIRKCUDBRIGHT a royal and police burgh, and county town of Kirkcudbrightshire 15/KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE (also known as the STEWARTRY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT and EAST GALLOWAY) the county town (Kirkcudbright) Lanark Scotland 16/LANARK, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Lanarkshire Lancashire England 16/LANCASHIRE assizes are held at Lancaster for the north, and at Liverpool and Manchester for the south of the county 16/LANCASTER, a market town and municipal borough, river port, and the county town of Lancashire Leicestershire England 16/LEICESTER, a municipal county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Leicestershire 16/LEICESTERSHIRE Leicester, the county town and a county borough Leitrim Ireland 16/LEITRIM The only towns are Carrick-on-Shannon (pop. 1118) and Manor Hamilton (993). ... assizes are held at Carrick-on-Shannon, and quarter sessions at Ballinamore, Carrick-on-Shannon and Manor Hamilton ... There is a small village named Leitrim about 4 m. N. of Carrick-on-Shannon, which was once of enough importance to give its name to a barony and to the county, and is said to have been the seat of an early bishopric. Limerick Ireland 16/LIMERICK The chief towns are Limerick (pop. 38,151), Rathkeale (1749) and Newcastle or Newcastle West (2599). The city of Limerick constitutes a county in itself. Assizes are held at Limerick, and quarter-sessions at Bruff, Limerick, Newcastle and Rathkeale. 16/LIMERICK, a city, county of a city, parliamentary borough, port and the chief town of Co. Limerick Lincolnshire England 16/LINCOLN, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Lincolnshire 16/LINCOLNSHIRE The north division is called the Parts of Lindsey, the south-west the Parts of Kesteven, and the south-east the Parts of Holland. ... The shire court for Lincolnshire was held at Lincoln every forty days Linlithgow Scotland 16/LINLITHGOW, a royal, municipal and police burgh and county town of Linlithgowshire 16/LINLITHGOWSHIRE, or WEST LOTHIAN Linlithgowshire is part of the sheriffdom of the Lothian's and Peebles, and a resident sheriff-substitute sits at Linlithgow and Bathgate. Londonderry Ireland 16/LONDONDERRY Towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth the county was seized, with the purpose of checking the power of the O'Neills, when it received the name of Coleraine, having that town for its capital. 16/LONDONDERRY, or DERRY, a city, county of a city, parliamentary borough (returning one member) and the chief town of Co. Londonderry, Longford Ireland 16/LONGFORD Longford (the county town 16/LONGFORD. the county town of Co. Longford Louth Ireland 17/LOUTH Assizes are held at Dundalk and quarter sessions at Ardee, Drogheda and Dundalk. ... Louth, si m. S.W. from Dundalk, is a decayed town which gave its name to the county 8/DROGHEDA, a municipal borough, seaport and market town, on the southern border of Co. Louth 8/DUNDALK, a seaport of Co. Louth Mayo Ireland 17/MAYO Castlebar (3585), the county town. ... Assizes are held at Castlebar, and quarter sessions at Ballina, Ballinrobe, Belmullet, Castlebar, Claremorris, Swineford and Westport. Meath Ireland 17/MEATH The chief towns are Navan (pop. 3839), Kells (2428) and Trim (1513), the county town. Assizes are held at Trim, and quarter sessions at Kells, Navan and Trim. 27/TRIM, a market town and the county town of Co. Meath 19/NAVAN Navan is the principal town of county Meath (though Trim is the county town) Merioneth Wales 8/DOLGELLEY (Dolgellau, dale of hazels), a market town and the county town of Merionethshire 18/MERIONETH The urban districts are: Bala (pop. 1544), Barmouth (Abermaw, 2214), Dolgelley (Dolgellau, 2437), Festiniog (11,435), Mallwyd (885), Towyn (3756). ... assizes are held at Dolgellau. Middlesex England 18/MIDDLESEX The county is in the jurisdiction of the central criminal court ... By charter of 1242 the common pleas for the county of Middlesex were ordered to be held at the stone cross in the Strand. 4/BRENTFORD Brentford has been the county-town for elections since 1701. Monaghan Ireland 18/MONAGHAN Monaghan (the county town, pop. 2932) 18/MONAGHAN, a market town and the county town of county Monaghan Monmouthshire England 18/MONMOUTH a municipal and contributory parliamentary borough, and the county town of Monmouthshire 18/MONMOUTHSHIRE assizes are held at Monmouth. Montgomery Wales 18/MONTGOMERY municipal and parliamentary borough, market town, and the county town of Montgomeryshire 18/MONTGOMERYSHIRE assizes being held alternately at Newtown and Welshpool. Nairn Scotland 19/NAIRN, a royal, municipal and police burgh and county town of Nairnshire, Scotland. 18/NAIRNSHIRE county town of Nairn Norfolk England 19/NORFOLK Norwich, a city and county borough and the county town 19/NORWICH, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Norfolk Northamptonshire England 19/NORTHAMPTON, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough and the county town of Northamptonshire 19/NORTHAMPTONSHIRE The borough of Northampton and the liberty of the soke of Peterborough have each a separate court of quarter sessions and a separate commission of the peace. Northumberland England 19/NORTHUMBERLAND assizes are held at Newcastle upon Tyne ... The shire-court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick... The assizes were held at Newcastle 1/ALNWICK, a market-town and the county-town of Northumberland 19/NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE the moot-hall (1810) for the meetings of assizes and sessions and the transaction of county business Nottinghamshire England 19/NOTTINGHAM, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and county town of Nottinghamshire Orkney Scotland 20/ORKNEY Kirkwall, the county town Oxfordshire England 20/OXFORD, a city, municipal and parliamentary borough, the county town of Oxfordshire 20/OXFORDSHIRE Oxford, a city and the county town Peebles Scotland 21/PEEBLES, a royal and police burgh and county town of Peeblesshire, Scotland 21/PEEBLESSHIRE The chief towns are Peebles (pop. 5266) and Innerleithen (2181)... Peeblesshire forms a sheriffdom with the Lothians and a sheriff-substitute sits in the county town. Pembroke Wales 21/PEMBROKE an ancient municipal borough, a contributory parliamentary borough and county-town of Pembrokeshire ... Although acknowledged as the county town of Pembrokeshire, Pembroke was superseded by Haverfordwest as the judicial and administrative centre of the shire on account of the more convenient position of the latter place. By the act of 1536 Pembroke was declared the leading borough in the Pembroke parliamentary district, yet the town continued to dwindle until the settlement of the government dockyard and works on Milford Haven. 21/PEMBROKESHIRE assizes are held at Haverfordwest. 13/HAVERFORDWEST the chief town of Pembrokeshire Perth Scotland 21/PERTH, a city, and royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Perthshire 21/PERTHSHIRE The sheriffdom is divided into an eastern and western district, the seat of the one being Perth and the other Dunblane. Queen's Laois Ireland 22/QUEENS'S COUNTY Maryborough (the county town) Radnor Wales 22/PRESTEIGN, a market town, urban district, and assize and county town of Radnorshire 22/RADNORSHIRE New Radnor, now a mere village with 405 inhabitants (1001), was incorporated in 1561 and its municipal privileges were not formally abolished till 1883. The chief towns are Presteign (pop. 1245); Llandrindod (1827); Knighton (2139), and Rhayader (1215) ... assizes are held at Presteign, which ranks as the county town. ... By the Act of Union (1536) ... assizes were ordained to be held in alternate years at Presteign and New Radnor. ... one [MP] for the united boroughs of New Radnor, Rhayader, Knighton, Cefnllys and Knucldas (Cnwclas). Renfrew Scotland 23/RENFREW, a royal, municipal and police burgh and county town of Renfrewshire, Scotland 23/RENFREWSHIRE Renfrewshire forms a sheriffdom with Bute, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Paisley and one at Greenock. Roscommon Ireland 23/ROSCOMMON, a market town and the county town of Co. Roscommon Ross and Cromarty Scotland 23/ROSS AND CROMARTY Dingwall is the county town. Ross and Cromarty forms a sheriffdom with Sutherlandshire, and there are resident sheriffs-substitute at Dingwall and Stornoway, the former also sitting at Tain and Cromarty. 8/DINGWALL, a royal and police burgh and county town of the shire of Ross and Cromarty Roxburgh Scotland 15/JEDBURGH, a royal and police burgh and county-town of Roxburghshire 23/ROXBURGHSHIRE Jedburgh, the county town ... The shires of Roxburgh, Berwick and Selkirk form a sheriffdom, and a resident sheriff-substitute sits at Jedburgh and Hawick. ... David I. constituted it a shire, its ancient county town of Roxburgh (see KELSO) forming one of the Court of Four Burghs. 15/KELSO On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Teviot and the Tweed stood the formidable castle and flourishing town of Roxburgh, from which the shire took its name. No trace exists of the town, and of the castle all that is left are a few ruins shaded by ancient ash trees. The castle was built by the Northumbrians, who called it Marchidum, or Marchmound, its present name apparently meaning Rawic's burgh, after some forgotten chief. After the consolidation of the kingdom of Scotland it became a favoured royal residence, and a town gradually sprang up beneath its protection, which reached its palmiest days under David I., and formed a member of the Court of Four Burghs with Edinburgh, Stirling and Berwick. It possessed a church, court of justice, mint, mills, and, what was remarkable for the I2th century, grammar school. Alexander II. was married and Alexander III. was born in the castle. During the long period of Border warfare, the town was repeatedly burned and the castle captured. After the defeat of Wallace at Falkirk the castle fell into the hands of the English, from whom it was delivered in 1314 by Sir James Douglas. Ceded to Edward III. in 1333, it was regained in 1342 by Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, only to be lost again four years later. The castle was finally retaken and razed to the ground in 1460. It was at the siege that the king, James II., was killed by the explosion of a huge gun called " the Lion." On the fall of the castle the town languished and was finally abandoned in favour of the rising burgh of Kelso. The town, whose patron-saint was St James, is still commemorated by St James's Fair, which is held on the 5th of every August on the vacant site, and is the most popular of Border festivals. Rutland England 23/RUTLAND The county town is Oakham ... The shire-court for Rutland was held at Oakham. [something about Uppingham elsewhere?] Selkirk Scotland 24/SELKIRK, a royal and police burgh and the county town of Selkirkshire 24/SELKIRKSHIRE The shires of Selkirk, Roxburgh and Berwick form a sheriffdom, and a resident sheriff-substitute sits at Selkirk and Galashiels. Shetland Scotland 24/SHETLAND, or ZETLAND there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Lerwick, the county town. 16/LERWICK, a municipal and police burgh of Shetland Shropshire England 24/SHREWSBURY, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market town and the county town of Shropshire ... Shrewsbury (Pengwerne, Scrobsbyryg, Salopesberie) 24/SHROPSHIRE (SALOP) assizes are held at Shrewsbury ... The shire court was held at Shrewsbury. Sligo Ireland 25/SLIGO The county town is Sligo 25/SLIGO, a municipal borough, seaport and market town, and the county town of county Sligo Somersetshire England 25/SOMERSETSHIRE assizes are held at Taunton and Wells ... Somerton, Ilchester and Taunton were successively the meeting-places of the shire court. 14/ILCHESTER Ilchester was the centre of the county administration from the reign of Edward III. until the 19th century, when the change from road to rail travelling completed the decay of the town. Its place has been taken by Taunton. 26/TAUNTON [there is] a shire hall Staffordshire England 25/STAFFORD, a market town, municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Staffordshire 25/STAFFORDSHIRE Stafford is the county town. ... assizes are held at Stafford Stirling Scotland 25/STIRLING, a royal, municipal and police burgh, river port and county town of Stirlingshire 25/STIRLINGSHIRE The shire forms a sheriffdom with the counties of Dumbarton and Clackmannan, but there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Stirling and another at Falkirk. Suffolk England 26/SUFFOLK for administrative purposes is divided into the counties of East Suffolk ... and West Suffolk ... Ipswich, a county borough and the county town ... There is one court of quarter sessions for the two administrative counties, which is usually held at Ipswich for east Suffolk, and then by adjournment at Bury St Edmunds for west Suffolk. ... The shire-court was held at Ipswich. 14/IPSWICH, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough and county town of Suffolk Surrey England 26/SURREY assizes are held at Guildford and Kingston alternately ... Guildford, though the county town, and often the seat of the court under John and Henry III., was of little importance beside Southwark ... The shire court was almost certainly held at Guildford, where the gaol for both Sussex and Surrey was from as early as 1202 until 1487, when Sussex had its own gaol at Lewes. 12/GUILDFORD, a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Surrey Sussex England 26/SUSSEX An act of Henry VII. (1504) directed that for convenience the county court should be held at Lewes as well as at Chichester, and this apparently gave rise to the division of Sussex into east and west parts, each of which is an administrative county. ... The county court was held at Lewes and Shoreham until the Great Inquest, when it was moved to Chichester. After several changes the act of 1504 arranged for it to be held alternately at Lewes and Chichester. There was no gaol in the county until 1487; that at Guildford being used in common by Surrey and Sussex, which were under one sheriff until 1567. 6/CHICHESTER Edward III. directed that the Sussex county court should be held at Chichester, and this was confirmed in the following year. 16/LEWES, a market-town and municipal borough and the county town of Sussex Sutherland Scotland 26/SUTHERLANDSHIRE Dornoch, the county town, belongs to the Wick group of parliamentary burghs. Sutherland forms a joint sheriffdom with Ross and Cromarty, and a sheriff-substitute presides at Dornoch. 8/DORNOCH, a royal and police burgh and county town of Sutherlandshire Tipperary Ireland 26/TIPPERARY Clonmel (the county town, pop. 10,167) ...Assizes for the north riding are held in Nenagh and for the south riding in Clonmel. 26/TIPPERARY The town is of great antiquity, but first acquired importance by the erection of a castle by King John, of which there are no remains. 6/CLONMEL, a municipal borough and the county town of Co. Tipperary Tyrone Ireland 27/TYRONE Omagh (the county town, 4789) ... Assizes are held at Omagh Warwickshire England 28/WARWICK, a municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Warwickshire 28/WARWICKSHIRE Warwick (11,889), the county town ... assizes are held at Warwick. ... Warwickshire was united with Leicestershire under one sheriff until 1566, the shire court for the former being held at Warwick. Waterford Ireland 28/WATERFORD Assizes are held at Waterford, and quarter sessions at Lismore, Dungarvan, and Waterford. 28/WATERFORD, a city, county of a city, parliamentary borough, seaport, and the chief town of Co. Waterford 8/DUNGARVAN, a market town and seaport of Co. Waterford Westmeath Ireland 28/WESTMEATH Mullingar (4500), the county town ... Assizes are held at Mullingar and quarter sessions at Mullingar and Moate. Westmorland England 28/WESTMORLAND Appleby, the county town ... assizes are held at Appleby ... The shire court and assizes for the county were held at Appleby. 2/APPLEBY, a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Westmorland Wexford Ireland 28/WEXFORD Assizes are held at Wexford, and quarter sessions at Enniscorthy, Gorey, New Ross and Wexford. 28/WEXFORD, a seaport, market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Co. Wexford Wicklow Ireland 28/WICKLOW Wicklow (the county town, 3288) ... Assizes are held at Wicklow, and quarter-sessions at Bray, Baltinglass, Tinahely, Arklow and Wicklow 28/WICKLOW, a seaport, market town, and the county town of county Wicklow Wigtown Scotland 28/WIGTOWN, a royal burgh and the county town of Wigtownshire 28/WIGTOWNSHIRE Wigtown, the county town ... The shire forms part of the sheriffdom of Dumfries and Galloway, and a sheriff-substitute sits at Wigtown and Stranraer. Wiltshire England 28/WILTSHIRE [WILTS] Salisbury, a city and the county town ... assizes are held at Salisbury and Devizes ... chiefly confined to the valleys of the Avon and the Wylye, the little township of Wilton which arose in the latter giving the name of Wilsaetan to the new settlers ... In the time of AEthelstan mints existed at Old Sarum, Malmesbury, Wilton, Cricklade and Marlborough. ... The shire court for Wiltshire was held at Wilton, and until 1446 the shrievalty was enjoyed ex officio by the castellans of Old Sarum. ... In the 13th century the assizes were held at Wilton, Malmesbury and New Sarum. 24/SALISBURY, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Wiltshire Worcestershire England 28/WORCESTERSHIRE county town of Worcester ... assizes are held at Worcester ... A charter of the reign of Alfred alludes to the erection of a " burh " at Worcester by Edward and aEthelflead, and it was after the recovery of Mercia from the Danes by Edward that the shire originated as an administrative area. ... The shire-court was held at Worcester. 28/WORCESTER, an episcopal city and county of a city, municipal, parliamentary, and county borough, and county town of Worcestershire Yorkshire England 28/YORK, a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, the seat of an archbishop, and the county town of Yorkshire 28/YORKSHIRE each of the three ridings is a distinct administrative county; though there is one high sheriff for the whole county. ... The shire court for Yorkshire was held at York

Notes. England -- Need to look at history section for "shire court". Scotland -- residence of sheriff, sub-sheriff, or sheriff-substitute.

References[edit]

Sources[edit]

Maps[edit]

Prose[edit]

Citations[edit]

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