httpsenwikipediaorgwikiLocalGovernmentCommissionforEngland History of England From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses see History of England disambiguation English history redirects here For the Jon English album see English History album hideThis article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed December Learn how and when to remove this template message This article includes a list of references but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations August Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message Part of a series on the History of England Timelineshow Prehistoric Britain Roman Britain SubRoman Britain Medieval period o Economy in the Middle Ages o AngloSaxon period English unification o High Middle Ages Norman conquest Norman period o Late Middle Ages Black Death in England Tudor period o Tudor dynasty o Elizabethan period o English Renaissance Stuart period o English Civil War o Commonwealth o Protectorate o Restoration o Glorious Revolution Georgian period o Regency period Victorian period Edwardian period First World War Interwar period Second World War Social history of the United Kingdom present Political history of the United Kingdom present Topicsshow Social history of England History of education in England History of the economy of England History of the politics of England English overseas possessions History of the English language Politiesshow Kingdom of England Kingdom of Great Britain United Kingdom By countyshow Bedfordshire Berkshire City of Bristol Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cheshire Cornwall Cumbria Derbyshire Devon Dorset Durham East Riding of Yorkshire East Sussex Essex Gloucestershire Greater London Greater Manchester Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire Isle of Wight Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire City of London Merseyside Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland North Yorkshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Rutland Shropshire Somerset South Yorkshire Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Tyne and Wear Warwickshire West Midlands West Sussex West Yorkshire Wiltshire Worcestershire By city or townshow Birmingham Bournemouth Brighton Bristol Chester Christchurch Colchester Coventry Dover Folkestone Leeds Liverpool London Maidstone Manchester Milton Keynes Newcastle Nottingham Plymouth Poole Portsmouth Reading Rochester Sheffield Shrewsbury Southampton St Albans Torquay Wetherby Worcester Worthing York England portal v t e Part of a series on the History of the BritishIsles Overviewshow United Kingdom o England Isle of Wight Isles of Scilly o Scotland Shetland Orkney Inner Hebrides Outer Hebrides o Wales Anglesey o Northern Ireland Ireland Isle of Man Mann Channel Islands o Jersey o Guernsey Prehistoric periodshow Prehistoric Britain o Prehistoric England o Prehistoric Scotland Prehistoric Shetland Prehistoric Orkney o Prehistoric Wales Prehistoric Ireland Prehistoric Mann Classical periodshow Roman Britain Roman Scotland Roman Wales Protohistoric Ireland Roman Ireland SubRoman Britain Medieval periodshow Medieval England o Early medieval England o High medieval England o Late medieval England Medieval Scotland o Early medieval Scotland o High medieval Scotland o Late medieval Scotland Medieval Wales o Early medieval Wales o High medieval Wales o Late medieval Wales Medieval Ireland o Early medieval Ireland o High medieval Ireland o Late medieval Ireland Medieval Mann Early modern periodshow Early modern Britain Early modern England Early modern Scotland Early modern Wales Early modern Ireland Early modern Mann Late modern periodshow United Kingdom since o Victorian period o Edwardian period o First World War o Interwar period o Second World War o Postwar period political history o Postwar period social history Late modern Ireland Late modern Mann v t e England became inhabited more than years ago as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed The earliest evidence for early modern humans in North West Europe a jawbone discovered in Devon at Kents Cavern in was redated in to between and years old Continuous human habitation in England dates to around years ago see Creswellian at the end of the last glacial period The region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic Neolithic and Bronze Age such as Stonehenge and Avebury In the Iron Age England like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons including some Belgic tribes eg the Atrebates the Catuvellauni the Trinovantes etc in the south east In AD the Roman conquest of Britain began the Romans maintained control of their province of Britannia until the early th century The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the AngloSaxon settlement of Britain which historians often regard as the origin of England and of the English people The AngloSaxons a collection of various Germanic peoples established several kingdoms that became the primary powers in presentday England and parts of southern Scotland They introduced the Old English language which largely displaced the previous British language The AngloSaxons warred with British successor states in Wales Cornwall and the Hen Ogledd Old North the Brythonicspeaking parts of northern England and southern Scotland as well as with each other Raids by Vikings became frequent after about AD and the Norsemen settled in large parts of what is now England During this period several rulers attempted to unite the various AngloSaxon kingdoms an effort that led to the emergence of the Kingdom of England by the th century In a Norman expedition invaded and conquered England The Norman dynasty established by William the Conqueror ruled England for over half a century before the period of succession crisis known as the Anarchy Following the Anarchy England came under the rule of the House of Plantagenet a dynasty which later inherited claims to the Kingdom of France During this period the Magna Carta was signed A succession crisis in France led to the Hundred Years War a series of conflicts involving the peoples of both nations Following the Hundred Years Wars England became embroiled in its own succession wars The Wars of the Roses pitted two branches of the House of Plantagenet against one another the House of York and the House of Lancaster The Lancastrian Henry Tudor ended the War of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty in Under the Tudors and the later Stuart dynasty England became a colonial power During the rule of the Stuarts the English Civil War took place between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists which resulted in the execution of King Charles I and the establishment of a series of republican governments first a Parliamentary republic known as the Commonwealth of England then a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell known as The Protectorate The Stuarts returned to the restored throne in though continued questions over religion and power resulted in the deposition of another Stuart king James II in the Glorious Revolution England which had conquered Wales in the th century united with Scotland in to form a new sovereign state called Great Britain Following the Industrial Revolution Great Britain ruled a colonial Empire the largest in recorded history Following a process of decolonisation in the th century mainly caused by the weakening of Great Britains power in the two World Wars almost all of the empires overseas territories became independent countries However as of update its cultural impact remains widespread and deep in many of them Contents Prehistory o Stone Age o Later Prehistory o Genetic history of the English Roman Britain The AngloSaxon migration Heptarchy and Christianisation Viking challenge and the rise of Wessex English unification England under the Danes and the Norman conquest Norman England England under the Plantagenets o Magna Carta o Henry III th century o Black Death th century Henry V and the Wars of the Roses Tudor England o Henry VII o Henry VIII o Edward VI and Mary I o Elizabeth I Elizabethan era Foreign affairs o End of Tudor era th century o Union of the Crowns o Colonial England o English Civil War o Restoration of the monarchy o Glorious Revolution Formation of the United Kingdom Modern England thth centuries o Industrial Revolution o Local governance th and st centuries o General history and political issues o Political history and local government o Recent changes See also o Related historical overviews o Historical lists and timelines o Overviews of significant historical eras o Related English history topics Societal overviews Local government Historical subtopics References Further reading o Jewish England o Historiography o Primary sources o External sources Prehistoryedit Main article Prehistoric Britain Stone Ageedit Stonehenge erected in several stages from cBC The time from Britains first inhabitation until the last glacial maximum is known as the Old Stone Age or Palaeolithic era Archaeological evidence indicates that what was to become England was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles because of its more hospitable climate between and during the various glacial periods of the distant past This earliest evidence from Happisburgh in Norfolk includes the oldest human footprints found outside Africa and points to dates of more than BP These earliest inhabitants were huntergatherers Low sealevels meant that Britain was attached to the continent for much of this earliest period of history and varying temperatures over tens of thousands of years meant that it was not always inhabited England has been continually inhabited since the last Ice Age ended around BC the beginning of the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic era Rising sealevels cut off Britain from the continent for the last time around BC The population by then was exclusively anatomically modern humans and the evidence suggests that their societies were increasingly complex and they were manipulating their environment and prey in new ways possibly selective burning of then omnipresent woodland to create clearings for herds to gather and then hunt them Hunting was mainly done with simple projectile weapons such as javelin and possibly sling Bow and arrow was known in Western Europe since least BC The climate continued to warm and the population probably rose The New Stone Age or Neolithic era began with the introduction of farming ultimately from the Middle East around BC It is not known whether this was caused by a substantial folk movement or native adoption of foreign practices or both People began to lead a more settled lifestyle Monumental collective tombs were built for the dead in the form of chambered cairns and long barrows Towards the end of the period other kinds of monumental stone alignments begin to appear such as Stonehenge their cosmic alignments show a preoccupation with the sky and planets Flint technology produced a number of highly artistic pieces as well as purely pragmatic More extensive woodland clearance was done for fields and pastures The Sweet Track in the Somerset Levels is one of the oldest timber trackways known in Northern Europe and among the oldest roads in the world dated by dendrochronology to the winter of BC it too is thought to have been a primarily religious structure Later Prehistoryedit View of the ramparts of the developed hillfort of Maiden Castle Dorset as they look today The Bronze Age began around BC with the appearance of bronze objects This coincides with the appearance of the characteristic Beaker culture again this might have occurred primarily by folk movement or by cultural assimilation or both The Bronze Age saw a shift of emphasis from the communal to the individual and the rise of increasingly powerful elites whose power came from their prowess as hunters and warriors and their controlling the flow of precious resources to manipulate tin and copper into highstatus bronze objects such as swords and axes Settlement became increasingly permanent and intensive Towards the end of the Bronze Age many examples of very fine metalwork began to be deposited in rivers presumably for ritual reasons and perhaps reflecting a progressive change in emphasis from the sky to the earth as a rising population put increasing pressure on the land England largely became bound up with the Atlantic trade system which created a cultural continuum over a large part of Western Europe It is possible that the Celtic languages developed or spread to England as part of this system by the end of the Iron Age there is much evidence that they were spoken across all England and western parts of Britain The Iron Age is conventionally said to begin around BC The Atlantic system had by this time effectively collapsed although England maintained contacts across the Channel with France as the Hallstatt culture became widespread across the country Its continuity suggests it was not accompanied by substantial movement of population crucially only a single Hallstatt burial is known from Britain and even here the evidence is inconclusive On the whole burials largely disappear across England and the dead were disposed of in a way which is archaeologically invisible excarnation is a widely cited possibility Hillforts were known since the Late Bronze Age but a huge number were constructed during BC particularly in the South while after about BC new forts were rarely built and many ceased to be regularly inhabited while a few forts become more and more intensively occupied suggesting a degree of regional centralisation Around this time the earliest mentions of Britain appear in the annals of history The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the th century BC and Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his exploratory voyage to the island around BC Both of these texts are now lost although quoted by later writers not enough survives to inform the archaeological interpretation to any significant degree Contact with the continent was less than in the Bronze Age but still significant Goods continued to move to England with a possible hiatus around to BC There were a few armed invasions of hordes of migrating Celts There are two known invasions Around BC a group from the Gaulish Parisii tribe apparently took over East Yorkshire establishing the highly distinctive Arras culture And from around BC groups of Belgae began to control significant parts of the South These invasions constituted movements of a few people who established themselves as a warrior elite atop existing native systems rather than replacing them The Belgic invasion was much larger than the Parisian settlement but the continuity of pottery style shows that the native population remained in place Yet it was accompanied by significant socioeconomic change Protourban or even urban settlements known as oppida begin to eclipse the old hillforts and an elite whose position is based on battle prowess and the ability to manipulate resources reappears much more distinctly In and BC Julius Caesar as part of his campaigns in Gaul invaded Britain and claimed to have scored a number of victories but he never penetrated further than Hertfordshire and could not establish a province However his invasions mark a turningpoint in British history Control of trade the flow of resources and prestige goods became ever more important to the elites of Southern Britain Rome steadily became the biggest player in all their dealings as the provider of great wealth and patronage A fullscale invasion and annexation was inevitable in retrospect Genetic history of the Englishedit Main article Genetic history of the British Isles The Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his Agricola completed in AD that the various groupings of Britons shared physical characteristics with continental peoples The Caledonians inhabitants of what is now Scotland had red hair and large limbs indicating a Germanic origin the Silures of what is now South Wales were swarthy with curly hair indicating a link with the Iberians of the Roman provinces of Hispania in what is now Portugal and Spain and the Britons nearest the Gauls of mainland Europe resembled the Gauls This gross oversimplification is somewhat true until today Some archaeologists and geneticists have challenged the longheld assumption that the invading AngloSaxons wiped out the native Britons in England when they invaded pointing instead to the possibility of a more limited folk movement bringing a new language and culture which the natives gradually assimilated Debate continues about the ultimate origins of the people of the British Isles In and respectively Bryan Sykes and Stephen Oppenheimer both argued for continuity since the Mesolithic with much input from the East during the Neolithic However the haplotypes which Sykes and Oppenheimer associated with Spain hailed ultimately from Asia Minor which might be more consistent with some kind of Neolithic wipeout although it is impossible to date this gene flow Other theories have proposed an even greater input in the Early Bronze Age than previously thought Ultimately the genetics have not yet revealed anything new Biological differences between the English and the Welsh were confirmed by tests at University College London in which the native English populations DNA correlated to others in Germanic parts of Northern Europe traceable through their Y chromosome Roman Britainedit Main article Roman Britain Roman Empire rd century Hadrians Wall viewed from Vercovicium After Caesars expeditions the Romans began real attempt to conquer Britain in AD at the behest of Emperor Claudius They landed in Kent and defeated two armies led by the kings of the Catuvellauni tribe Caratacus and Togodumnus in battles at the Medway and the Thames Togodumnus was killed and Caratacus fled to Wales The Roman force led by Aulus Plautius waited for Claudius to come and lead the final march on the Catuvellauni capital at Camulodunum modern Colchester before he returned to Rome for his triumph The Catuvellauni held sway over most of the southeastern corner of England eleven local rulers surrendered a number of client kingdoms were established and the rest became a Roman province with Camulodunum as its capital Over the next four years the territory was consolidated and the future emperor Vespasian led a campaign into the Southwest where he subjugated two more tribes By AD the border had been pushed back to the Severn and the Trent and campaigns were underway to subjugate Northern England and Wales But in AD under the leadership of the warriorqueen Boudicca the tribes rebelled against the Romans At first the rebels had great success They burned Camulodunum Londinium and Verulamium to the ground There is some archaeological evidence that the same happened at Winchester The Second Legion Augusta stationed at Exeter refused to move for fear of revolt among the locals Londinium governor Suetonius Paulinus evacuated the city before the rebels sacked and burned it the fire was so hot that a teninch layer of melted red clay remains feet below Londons streets In the end the rebels were said to have killed Romans and Roman sympathizers Paulinus gathered what was left of the Roman army In the decisive battle Romans faced nearly warriors somewhere along the line of Watling Street at the end of which Boudicca was utterly defeated It was said that rebels were killed but only Romans Over the next years the borders expanded just a little but the governor Agricola incorporated into the province the last pockets of independence in Wales and Northern England He also led a campaign into Scotland which was recalled by Emperor Domitian The border gradually formed along the Stanegate road in Northern England solidified by Hadrians Wall built in AD despite temporary forays into Scotland The Romans and their culture stayed in charge for years Traces of their presence are ubiquitous throughout England The AngloSaxon migrationedit Main article SubRoman Britain Further information AngloSaxon settlement of Britain Kingdoms and tribes in Britain c AD In the wake of the breakdown of Roman rule in Britain from the middle of the fourth century present day England was progressively settled by Germanic groups Collectively known as the AngloSaxons these were Angles and Saxons from what is now the DanishGerman border area and Jutes from the Jutland peninsula The entire region was referred to as Hwicce and settlements throughout the south were called Gewisse The Battle of Deorham was a critical in establishing AngloSaxon rule in Saxon mercenaries existed in Britain since before the late Roman period but the main influx of population probably happened after the fifth century The precise nature of these invasions is not fully known there are doubts about the legitimacy of historical accounts due to a lack of archaeological finds Gildas Sapienss De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae composed in the th century states that when the Roman army departed the Isle of Britannia in the th century CE the indigenous Britons were invaded by Picts their neighbours to the north now Scotland and the Scots now Ireland Britons invited the Saxons to the island to repel them but after they vanquished the Scots and Picts the Saxons turned against the Britons Seven Kingdoms are traditionally identified as being established by these Saxon migrants Three were clustered in the South east Sussex Kent and Essex The Midlands were dominated by the kingdoms of Mercia and East Anglia The Monarchs of Mercias lineage was determined to reach as far back as the early s To the north was Northumbria which unified two earlier kingdoms Bernicia and Deira Eventually the kingdoms were dominated by Northumbria and Mercia in the th century Mercia in the th century and then Wessex in the th century Northumbria extended its control north into Scotland and west into Wales It also subdued Mercia whose first powerful King Penda was killed by Oswy in Northumbrias power began to wane after with the defeat and death of its king Aegfrith at the hands of the Picts Mercian power reached its peak under the rule of Offa who from had influence over most of AngloSaxon England Since Offas death in the supremacy of Wessex was established under Egbert who extended control west into Cornwall before defeating the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun in Four years later he received submission and tribute from the Northumbrian king Eanred The history of the fifth and sixth centuries is particularly difficult to access peppered with a mixture of mythology such as the characters of Hengist and Horsa and legend such as St Germanuss socalled Alleluia Victory against the Heathens and halfremembered history such as the exploits of Ambrosius Aurelianus and King Arthur However the belief that the Saxons wiped or drove out all the native Britons from England has been widely discredited by a number of archaeologists since the s Anyway AngloSaxons and Saxonified Britons spread into England by a combination of military conquest and cultural assimilation By the eighth century a kind of England had emerged Heptarchy and Christianisationedit Britain c Main articles Northumbria Mercia Offa of Mercia Heptarchy and AngloSaxon Christianity Christianisation of AngloSaxon England began around AD influenced by Celtic Christianity from the northwest and the Roman Catholic Church from the southeast Augustine the first Archbishop of Canterbury took office in In he baptised the first Christian AngloSaxon king Aethelbert of Kent The last pagan AngloSaxon king Penda of Mercia died in The last pagan Jutish king Arwald of the Isle of Wight was killed in The AngloSaxon mission on the continent took off in the th century leading to the Christianisation of practically all of the Frankish Empire by Throughout the th and th century power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the th century but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria which was formed from the amalgamation of Bernicia and Deira Edwin of Northumbria probably held dominance over much of Britain though Bedes Northumbrian bias should be kept in mind Due to succession crises Northumbrian hegemony was not constant and Mercia remained a very powerful kingdom especially under Penda Two defeats ended Northumbrian dominance the Battle of the Trent in against Mercia and Nechtanesmere in against the Picts The socalled Mercian Supremacy dominated the th century though it was not constant Aethelbald and Offa the two most powerful kings achieved high status indeed Offa was considered the overlord of south Britain by Charlemagne His power is illustrated by the fact that he summoned the resources to build Offas Dyke However a rising Wessex and challenges from smaller kingdoms kept Mercian power in check and by the early th century the Mercian Supremacy was over This period has been described as the Heptarchy though this term has now fallen out of academic use The term arose because the seven kingdoms of Northumbria Mercia Kent East Anglia Essex Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain Other small kingdoms were also politically important across this period Hwicce Magonsaete Lindsey and Middle Anglia Viking challenge and the rise of Wessexedit Main articles Danelaw Viking Age and Alfred the Great England in The first recorded landing of Vikings took place in in Dorsetshire on the southwest coast The first major attack in Britain was in at Lindisfarne monastery as given by the AngloSaxon Chronicle However by then the Vikings were almost certainly wellestablished in Orkney and Shetland and many other nonrecorded raids probably occurred before this Records do show the first Viking attack on Iona taking place in The arrival of the Vikings in particular the Danish Great Heathen Army upset the political and social geography of Britain and Ireland In Northumbria fell to the Danes East Anglia fell in Though Wessex managed to contain the Vikings by defeating them at Ashdown in a second invading army landed leaving the Saxons on a defensive footing At much the same time thelred king of Wessex died and was succeeded by his younger brother Alfred Alfred was immediately confronted with the task of defending Wessex against the Danes He spent the first five years of his reign paying the invaders off In Alfreds forces were overwhelmed at Chippenham in a surprise attack It was only now with the independence of Wessex hanging by a thread that Alfred emerged as a great king In May he led a force that defeated the Danes at Edington The victory was so complete that the Danish leader Guthrum was forced to accept Christian baptism and withdraw from Mercia Alfred then set about strengthening the defences of Wessex building a new navy vessels strong Alfreds success bought Wessex and Mercia years of peace and sparked economic recovery in previously ravaged areas Alfreds success was sustained by his son Edward whose decisive victories over the Danes in East Anglia in and were followed by a crushing victory at Tempsford in These military gains allowed Edward to fully incorporate Mercia into his kingdom and add East Anglia to his conquests Edward then set about reinforcing his northern borders against the Danish kingdom of Northumbria Edwards rapid conquest of the English kingdoms meant Wessex received homage from those that remained including Gwynedd in Wales and Scotland His dominance was reinforced by his son thelstan who extended the borders of Wessex northward in conquering the Kingdom of York and leading a land and naval invasion of Scotland These conquests led to his adopting the title King of the English for the first time The dominance and independence of England was maintained by the kings that followed It was not until and the accession of thelred the Unready that the Danish threat resurfaced Two powerful Danish kings Harold Bluetooth and later his son Sweyn both launched devastating invasions of England AngloSaxon forces were resoundingly defeated at Maldon in More Danish attacks followed and their victories were frequent thelreds control over his nobles began to falter and he grew increasingly desperate His solution was to pay off the Danes for almost years he paid increasingly large sums to the Danish nobles to keep them from English coasts These payments known as Danegelds crippled the English economy thelred then made an alliance with Normandy in through marriage to the Dukes daughter Emma in the hope of strengthening England Then he then made a great error in he ordered the massacre of all the Danes in England In response Sweyn began a decade of devastating attacks on England Northern England with its sizable Danish population sided with Sweyn By London Oxford and Winchester had fallen to the Danes thelred fled to Normandy and Sweyn seized the throne Sweyn suddenly died in and thelred returned to England confronted by Sweyns successor Cnut However in thelred also suddenly died Cnut swiftly defeated the remaining Saxons killing thelreds son Edmund in the process Cnut seized the throne crowning himself King of England English unificationedit Main articles Athelstan and Edgar of England Silver brooch imitating a coin of Edward the Elder c found in Rome Italy British Museum Alfred of Wessex died in and was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder Edward and his brotherinlaw thelred of what was left of Mercia began a programme of expansion building forts and towns on an Alfredian model On thelreds death his wife Edwards sister thelfld ruled as Lady of the Mercians and continued expansion It seems Edward had his son thelstan brought up in the Mercian court and on Edwards death Athelstan succeeded to the Mercian kingdom and after some uncertainty Wessex thelstan continued the expansion of his father and aunt and was the first king to achieve direct rulership of what we would now consider England The titles attributed to him in charters and on coins suggest a still more widespread dominance His expansion aroused illfeeling among the other kingdoms of Britain and he defeated a combined ScottishViking army at the Battle of Brunanburh However the unification of England was not a certainty Under thelstans successors Edmund and Eadred the English kings repeatedly lost and regained control of Northumbria Nevertheless Edgar who ruled the same expanse as Athelstan consolidated the kingdom which remained united thereafter England under the Danes and the Norman conquestedit Main articles Ethelred the Unready Canute the Great Eirkr Hkonarson and Norman conquest of England The rune stone U was raised in memory of a Viking who went to England three times There were renewed Scandinavian attacks on England at the end of the th century thelred ruled a long reign but ultimately lost his kingdom to Sweyn of Denmark though he recovered it following the latters death However thelreds son Edmund II Ironside died shortly afterwards allowing Cnut Sweyns son to become king of England Under his rule the kingdom became the centre of government for the North Sea empire which included Denmark and Norway Cnut was succeeded by his sons but in the native dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor Edwards failure to produce an heir caused a furious conflict over the succession on his death in His struggles for power against Godwin Earl of Wessex the claims of Cnuts Scandinavian successors and the ambitions of the Normans whom Edward introduced to English politics to bolster his own position caused each to vie for control of Edwards reign Harold Godwinson became king probably appointed by Edward on his deathbed and endorsed by the Witan But William of Normandy Harald Hardrde aided by Harold Godwins estranged brother Tostig and Sweyn II of Denmark all asserted claims to the throne By far the strongest hereditary claim was that of Edgar the theling but due to his youth and apparent lack of powerful supporters he did not play a major part in the struggles of although he was made king for a short time by the Witan after the death of Harold Godwinson In September Harald III of Norway and Earl Tostig landed in Northern England with a force of around men and longships Harold Godwinson defeated the invaders and killed Harald III of Norway and Tostig at the Battle of Stamford Bridge On September William of Normandy invaded England in a campaign called the Norman Conquest After marching from Yorkshire Harolds exhausted army was defeated and Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings on October Further opposition to William in support of Edgar the theling soon collapsed and William was crowned king on Christmas Day For five years he faced a series of rebellions in various parts of England and a halfhearted Danish invasion but he subdued them and established an enduring regime Norman Englandedit Depiction of the Battle of Hastings on the Bayeux Tapestry The Norman Conquest led to a profound change in the history of the English state William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes which reveals that within years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders who monopolised all senior positions in the government and the Church William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French in both Normandy and England The use of the AngloNorman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English Upon being crowned on Christmas Day William immediately began consolidating his power By he faced revolts on all sides and spent four years crushing them He then imposed his superiority over Scotland and Wales forcing them to recognise him as overlord The English Middle Ages were characterised by civil war international war occasional insurrection and widespread political intrigue among the aristocratic and monarchic elite England was more than selfsufficient in cereals dairy products beef and mutton Its international economy was based on wool trade in which wool from the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders where it was worked into cloth Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with the Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France An English textile industry was established in the th century providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation Henry I the fourth son of William I the Conqueror succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in Henry was also known as Henry Beauclerc because he received a formal education unlike his older brother and heir apparent William who got practical training to be king Henry worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the AngloSaxon and AngloNorman societies The loss of his son William Adelin in the wreck of the White Ship in November undermined his reforms This problem regarding succession cast a long shadow over English history Henry I had required the leading barons ecclesiastics and officials in Normandy and England to take an oath to accept Matilda also known as Empress Maud Henry Is daughter as his heir England was far less than enthusiastic to accept an outsider and a woman as their ruler There is some evidence that Henry was unsure of his own hopes and the oath to make Matilda his heir Probably Henry hoped Matilda would have a son and step aside as Queen Mother Upon Henrys death the Norman and English barons ignored Matildas claim to the throne and thus through a series of decisions Stephen Henrys favourite nephew was welcomed by many in England and Normandy as their new king On December Stephen was anointed king with implicit support by the church and nation Matilda and her own son waited in France until she sparked the civil war from known as the Anarchy In the autumn of she invaded England with her illegitimate halfbrother Robert of Gloucester Her husband Geoffroy V of Anjou conquered Normandy but did not cross the channel to help his wife During this breakdown of central authority nobles built adulterine castles ie castles erected without government permission which were hated by the peasants who were forced to build and maintain them Stephen was captured and his government fell Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London The war continued until when Matilda returned to France Stephen reigned unopposed until his death in although his hold on the throne was uneasy As soon as he regained power he began to demolish the adulterine castles but kept a few castles standing which put him at odds with his heir His contested reign civil war and lawlessness broke out saw a major swing in power towards feudal barons In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders he handed over large tracts of land England under the Plantagenetsedit Further information House of Plantagenet This section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed January Learn how and when to remove this template message Empress Matilda and Geoffroys son Henry resumed the invasion he was already Count of Anjou Duke of Normandy and Duke of Aquitaine when he landed in England When Stephens son and heir apparent Eustace died in Stephen made an agreement with Henry of Anjou who became Henry II to succeed Stephen and guarantee peace between them The union was retrospectively named the Angevin Empire Henry II destroyed the remaining adulterine castles and expanded his power through various means and to different levels into Ireland Scotland Wales Flanders Nantes Brittany Quercy Toulouse Bourges and Auvergne The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power from the barony to the monarchical state in England it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church again to the monarchical state This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism In his reign new AngloAngevin and AngloAquitanian aristocracies developed though not to the same degree as the AngloNorman once did and the Norman nobles interacted with their French peers Henrys successor Richard I the Lion Heart also known as The absent king was preoccupied with foreign wars taking part in the Third Crusade being captured while returning and pledging fealty to the Holy Roman Empire as part of his ransom and defending his French territories against Philip II of France His successor his younger brother John lost much of those territories including Normandy following the disastrous Battle of Bouvines in despite having in made the Kingdom of England a tributepaying vassal of the Holy See which it remained until the th century when the Kingdom rejected the overlordship of the Holy See and reestablished its sovereignty From onwards John had a constant policy of maintaining close relations with the Pope which partially explains how he persuaded the Pope to reject the legitimacy of the Magna Carta Magna Cartaedit Main article Magna Carta One of only four surviving exemplifications of the text Cotton MS Augustus II property of the British Library Over the course of his reign a combination of higher taxes unsuccessful wars and conflict with the Pope made King John unpopular with his barons In some of the most important barons rebelled against him He met their leaders along with their French and Scot allies at Runnymede near London on June to seal the Great Charter Magna Carta in Latin which imposed legal limits on the kings personal powers But as soon as hostilities ceased John received approval from the Pope to break his word because he had made it under duress This provoked the First Barons War and a French invasion by Prince Louis of France invited by a majority of the English barons to replace John as king in London in May John travelled around the country to oppose the rebel forces directing among other operations a twomonth siege of the rebelheld Rochester Castle Henry IIIedit Main article Henry III of England Johns son Henry III was only years old when he became king He spent much of his reign fighting the barons over the Magna Carta and the royal rights and was eventually forced to call the first parliament in He was also unsuccessful on the Continent where he endeavoured to reestablish English control over Normandy Anjou and Aquitaine His reign was punctuated by many rebellions and civil wars often provoked by incompetence and mismanagement in government and Henrys perceived overreliance on French courtiers thus restricting the influence of the English nobility One of these rebellionsled by a disaffected courtier Simon de Montfortwas notable for its assembly of one of the earliest precursors to Parliament In addition to fighting the Second Barons War Henry III made war against Saint Louis and was defeated during the Saintonge War yet Louis IX did not capitalise on his victory respecting his opponents rights Henry IIIs policies towards Jews began with relative tolerance but became gradually more restrictive In the Statute of Jewry reinforced physical segregation and demanded a previously notional requirement to wear square white badges Henry III also backed an accusation of child murder in Lincoln ordering a Jew Copin to be executed and Jews to be arrested for trial were killed Popular superstitious fears were fuelled and Catholic theological hostility combined with Baronial abuse of loan arrangements resulting in Simon de Montforts supporters targeting of Jewish communities in their revolt This hostility violence and controversy was the background to the increasingly oppressive measures that followed under Edward I th centuryedit The reign of Edward I reigned was rather more successful Edward enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his government and he summoned the first officially sanctioned Parliaments of England such as his Model Parliament He conquered Wales and attempted to use a succession dispute to gain control of the Kingdom of Scotland though this developed into a costly and drawnout military campaign Edward I is also known for his policies first persecuting Jews particularly the Statute of the Jewry This banned Jews from their previous role in making loans and demanded that they work as merchants farmers craftsmen or soldiers This was unrealistic and failed Edwards solution was to expel Jews from England His son Edward II proved a disaster A weak man who preferred to engage in activities like thatching and ditchdiggingcitation needed rather than jousting hunting or the usual entertainments of kings he spent most of his reign trying in vain to control the nobility who in return showed continual hostility to him Meanwhile the Scottish leader Robert Bruce began retaking all the territory conquered by Edward I In the English army was disastrously defeated by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn Edward also showered favours on his companion Piers Gaveston a knight of humble birth While it has been widely believed that Edward was a homosexual because of his closeness to Gaveston there is no concrete evidence of this The kings enemies including his cousin Thomas of Lancaster captured and murdered Gaveston in Edwards downfall came in when his wife Queen Isabella travelled to her native France and with her lover Roger Mortimer invaded England Despite their tiny force they quickly rallied support for their cause The king fled London and his companion since Piers Gavestons death Hugh Despenser was publicly tried and executed Edward was captured charged with breaking his coronation oath deposed and imprisoned in Gloucestershire until he was murdered some time in the autumn of presumably by agents of Isabella and Mortimer Millions of people in northern Europe died in the Great Famine of In England half a million people died more than of the population Edward III son of Edward II was crowned at age after his father was deposed by his mother and her consort Roger Mortimer At age he led a successful coup against Mortimer the de facto ruler of the country and began his personal reign Edward III reigned restored royal authority and went on to transform England into the most efficient military power in Europe His reign saw vital developments in legislature and governmentin particular the evolution of the English parliamentas well as the ravages of the Black Death After defeating but not subjugating the Kingdom of Scotland he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne in but his claim was denied due to the Salic law This started what would become known as the Hundred Years War Following some initial setbacks the war went exceptionally well for England victories at Crcy and Poitiers led to the highly favourable Treaty of Brtigny Edwards later years were marked by international failure and domestic strife largely as a result of his inactivity and poor health For many years trouble had been brewing with Castilea Spanish kingdom whose navy had taken to raiding English merchant ships in the Channel Edward won a major naval victory against a Castilian fleet off Winchelsea in Although the Castilian crossbowmen killed many of the enemy the English gradually got the better of the encounter In spite of Edwards success however Winchelsea was only a flash in a conflict that raged between the English and the Spanish for over years coming to a head with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in In England signed an alliance with the Kingdom of Portugal which is claimed to be the oldest alliance in the world still in force In a Peasants Revolt led by Wat Tyler spread across large parts of England It was suppressed by Richard II with the death of rebels Black Deathedit Main article Black Death in England The Black Death an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread all over Europe arrived in England in and killed as much as a third to half the population Military conflicts during this period were usually with domestic neighbours such as the Welsh Irish and Scots and included the Hundred Years War against the French and their Scottish allies Notable English victories in the Hundred Years War included Crcy and Agincourt The final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince Owain Glyndr in by Prince Henry who later became Henry V represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule Edward III gave land to powerful noble families including many people of royal lineage Because land was equivalent to power these powerful men could try to claim the crown The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more and his forceful dispossession in by Henry IV increased the turmoil Henry spent much of his reign defending himself against plots rebellions and assassination attempts English Royalty House of Lancaster Armorial of Plantagenet Henry IV Henry V King of England John Duke of Bedford Thomas Duke of Clarence Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Blanche Electress Palatine Philippa Queen of Denmark v t e Rebellions continued throughout the first ten years of Henrys reign including the revolt of Owain Glyndr who declared himself Prince of Wales in and the rebellion of Henry Percy st Earl of Northumberland The kings success in putting down these rebellions was due partly to the military ability of his eldest son Henry of Monmouth who later became king though the son managed to seize much effective power from his father in th century Henry V and the Wars of the Rosesedit Further information Lancastrian War and Wars of the Roses Henry V succeeded to the throne in He renewed hostilities with France and began a set of military campaigns which are considered a new phase of the Hundred Years War referred to as the Lancastrian War He won several notable victories over the French including at the Battle of Agincourt In the Treaty of Troyes Henry V was given the power to succeed the current ruler of France Charles VI of France The Treaty also provided that he would marry Charles VIs daughter Catherine of Valois They married in Henry died of dysentery in leaving a number of unfulfilled plans including his plan to take over as King of France and to lead a crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims Henry Vs son Henry VI became king in as an infant His reign was marked by constant turmoil due to his political weaknesses While he was growing up England was ruled by the Regency government The Regency Council tried to install Henry VI as the King of France as provided by the Treaty of Troyes signed by his father and led English forces to take over areas of France It appeared they might succeed due to the poor political position of the son of Charles VI who had claimed to be the rightful king as Charles VII of France However in Joan of Arc began a military effort to prevent the English from gaining control of France The French forces regained control of French territory In Henry VI came of age and began to actively rule as king To forge peace he married French noblewoman Margaret of Anjou in as provided in the Treaty of Tours Hostilities with France resumed in When England lost the Hundred Years War in August Henry fell into mental breakdown until Christmas He could not control the feuding nobles and civil war began called Wars of the Roses Although fighting was very sporadic and small there was a general breakdown in the power of the Crown The royal court and Parliament moved to Coventry in the Lancastrian heartlands which thus became the capital of England until Henrys cousin deposed Henry in to became Edward IV He defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Mortimers Cross He was briefly expelled from the throne in when Richard Neville Earl of Warwick brought Henry back to power Six months later Edward defeated and killed Warwick in battle and reclaimed the throne Henry was imprisoned in the Tower of London and died there Edward went a little way to restoring the power of the Crown Edward died in only years old His eldest son and heir Edward V aged could not succeed him because the kings brother Richard Duke of Gloucester declared his marriage bigamous making all his children illegitimate Richard declared himself king Edward V and his yearold brother Richard were imprisoned in the Tower of London and were not seen again It was widely believed that Richard had them murdered and he was reviled as a treacherous fiend which limited his ability to govern during his brief reign In summer Henry Tudor the last Lancastrian male landed in England from exile in France He defeated and killed Richard at Bosworth Field on August and became king Henry VII See also Black Death in England English historians in the Middle Ages List of English chronicles and Bayeux Tapestry Tudor Englandedit Main article Tudor period Further information Early Modern Britain and English Renaissance Henry VIIedit With Henry VIIs accession to the throne in the Wars of the Roses came to an end and Tudors would continue to rule England for years Traditionally the Battle of Bosworth Field is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England although Henry did not introduce any new concept of monarchy and for most of his reign his hold on power was tenuous He claimed the throne by conquest and Gods judgement in battle Parliament quickly recognized him as king but the Yorkists were far from defeated Nonetheless he married Edward IVs eldest daughter Elizabeth in January thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster Most of the European rulers did not believe Henry would survive long and were thus willing to shelter claimants against him The first plot against him was the Stafford and Lovell Rebellion of which presented no serious threat But Richard IIIs nephew John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln hatched another attempt the following year Using a peasant boy named Lambert Simnel who posed as Edward Earl of Warwick the real Warwick was locked up in the Tower of London he led an army of German mercenaries paid for by Margaret of Burgundy into England They were defeated and de la Pole was killed at the difficult Battle of Stoke where the loyalty of some of the royal troops to Henry was questionable The king realizing that Simnel was a dupe employed him in the royal kitchen A more serious threat was Perkin Warbeck a Flemish youth who posed as Edward IVs son Richard Again with support from Margaret of Burgundy he invaded England four times from before he was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London Both Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick were dangerous even in captivity and Henry executed them in before Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain would allow their daughter Catherine to come to England and marry his son Arthur In Henry defeated Cornish rebels marching on London The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful despite worries about succession after the death of his wife Elizabeth of York in Henry VIIs foreign policy was peaceful He had made an alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I but in when they went to war with France England was dragged into the conflict Impoverished and his hold on power insecure Henry had no desire for war He quickly reached an understanding with the French and renounced all claims to their territory except the port of Calais realizing also that he could not stop them from incorporating the Duchy of Brittany In return the French agreed to recognize him as king and stop sheltering pretenders Shortly afterwards they became preoccupied with adventures in Italy Henry also reached an understanding with Scotland agreeing to marry his daughter Margaret to that countrys king James IV Upon becoming king Henry inherited a government severely weakened and degraded by the Wars of the Roses The treasury was empty having been drained by Edward IVs Woodville inlaws after his death Through a tight fiscal policy and sometimes ruthless tax collection and confiscations Henry refilled the treasury by the time of his death He also effectively rebuilt the machinery of government In the kings son Arthur having married Catherine of Aragon died of illness at age leaving his younger brother Henry Duke of York as heir When the king himself died in the position of the Tudors was secure at last and his son succeeded him unopposed Henry VIIIedit King Henry VIII Henry VIII began his reign with much optimism The handsome athletic young king stood in sharp contrast to his wary miserly father Henrys lavish court quickly drained the treasury of the fortune he inherited He married the widowed Catherine of Aragon and they had several children but none survived infancy except a daughter Mary In the young king started a war in France Although England was an ally of Spain one of Frances principal enemies the war was mostly about Henrys desire for personal glory despite his sister Mary being married to the French king Louis XII The war accomplished little The English army suffered badly from disease and Henry was not even present at the one notable victory the Battle of the Spurs Meanwhile James IV of Scotland despite being Henrys other brotherinlaw activated his alliance with the French and declared war on England While Henry was dallying in France Catherine who was serving as regent in his absence and his advisers were left to deal with this threat At the Battle of Flodden on September the Scots were completely defeated James and most of the Scottish nobles were killed When Henry returned from France he was given credit for the victory Eventually Catherine was no longer able to have any more children The king became increasingly nervous about the possibility of his daughter Mary inheriting the throne as Englands one experience with a female sovereign Matilda in the th century had been a catastrophe He eventually decided that it was necessary to divorce Catherine and find a new queen To persuade the Church to allow this Henry cited the passage in the Book of Leviticus If a man taketh his brothers wife he hath committed adultery they shall be childless However Catherine insisted that she and Arthur never consummated their brief marriage and that the prohibition did not apply here The timing of Henrys case was very unfortunate it was and the Pope had been imprisoned by emperor Charles V Catherines nephew and the most powerful man in Europe for siding with his archenemy Francis I of France Because he could not divorce in these circumstances Henry seceded from the Church in what became known as the English Reformation The newly established Church of England amounted to little more than the existing Catholic Church but led by the king rather than the Pope It took a number of years for the separation from Rome to be completed and many were executed for resisting the kings religious policies In Catherine was banished from court and spent the rest of her life until her death in alone in an isolated manor home barred from contact with Mary Secret correspondence continued thanks to her ladiesinwaiting Their marriage was declared invalid making Mary an illegitimate child Henry married Anne Boleyn secretly in January just as his divorce from Catherine was finalised They had a second public wedding Anne soon became pregnant and may have already been when they wed But on September she gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth The king was devastated at his failure to obtain a son after all the effort it had taken to remarry Gradually he came to develop a disliking of his new queen for her strange behaviour In when Anne was pregnant again Henry was badly injured in a jousting accident Shaken by this the queen gave birth prematurely to a stillborn boy By now the king was convinced that his marriage was hexed and having already found a new queen Jane Seymour he put Anne in the Tower of London on charges of witchcraft Afterwards she was beheaded along with five men her brother included accused of adultery with her The marriage was then declared invalid so that Elizabeth just like her half sister became a bastard Henry immediately married Jane Seymour who became pregnant almost as quickly On October she gave birth to a healthy boy Edward which was greeted with huge celebrations However the queen died of puerperal sepsis ten days later Henry genuinely mourned her death and at his own passing nine years later he was buried next to her The king married a fourth time in to the German Anne of Cleves for a political alliance with her Protestant brother the Duke of Cleves He also hoped to obtain another son in case something should happen to Edward Anne proved a dull unattractive woman and Henry did not consummate the marriage He quickly divorced her and she remained in England as a kind of adopted sister to him He married again to a yearold named Catherine Howard But when it became known that she was neither a virgin at the wedding nor a faithful wife afterwards she ended up on the scaffold and the marriage declared invalid His sixth and last marriage was to Catherine Parr who was more his nursemaid than anything else as his health was failing since his jousting accident in In the king started a new campaign in France but unlike in he only managed with great difficulty He only conquered the city of Boulogne which France retook in Scotland also declared war and at Solway Moss was again totally defeated Henrys paranoia and suspicion worsened in his last years The number of executions during his year reign numbered tens of thousands He died in January at age and was succeeded by his son Edward VI Edward VI and Mary Iedit Although he showed piety and intelligence Edward VI was only nine years old when he became king in His uncle Edward Seymour st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIIIs will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch by March He took the title of Protector While some see him as a highminded idealist his stay in power culminated in a crisis in when many counties of the realm were up in protest Ketts Rebellion in Norfolk and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis while invasion from Scotland and France were feared Somerset disliked by the Regency Council for being autocratic was removed from power by John Dudley who is known as Lord President Northumberland Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself but he was more conciliatory and the Council accepted him During Edwards reign England changed from being a Catholic nation to a Protestant one in schism from Rome Edward showed great promise but fell violently ill of tuberculosis in and died that August two months before his th birthday Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son so that he could remain the power behind the throne His plot failed in a matter of days Jane Grey was beheaded and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch Mary had never been expected to hold the throne at least not since Edward was born She was a devoted Catholic who believed that she could reverse the Reformation Returning England to Catholicism led to the burnings of Protestants which are recorded especially in John Foxes Book of Martyrs Mary then married her cousin Philip son of Emperor Charles V and King of Spain when Charles abdicated in The union was difficult because Mary was already in her late s and Philip was a Catholic and a foreigner and so not very welcome in England This wedding also provoked hostility from France already at war with Spain and now fearing being encircled by the Habsburgs Calais the last English outpost on the Continent was then taken by France King Philip had very little power although he did protect Elizabeth He was not popular in England and spent little time there Mary eventually became pregnant or at least believed herself to be In reality she may have had uterine cancer Her death in November was greeted with huge celebrations in the streets of London Elizabeth Iedit Main article Elizabethan era After Mary I died in Elizabeth I came to the throne Her reign restored a sort of order to the realm after the turbulent reigns of Edward VI and Mary I The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement which reestablished the Church of England Much of Elizabeths success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans and Catholics She managed to offend neither to a large extent although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed Despite the need for an heir Elizabeth declined to marry despite offers from a number of suitors across Europe including the Swedish king Erik XIV This created endless worries over her succession especially in the s when she nearly died of smallpox It has been often rumoured that she had a number of lovers including Francis Drake but there is no hard evidence Elizabeth I Elizabeth maintained relative government stability Apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in she was effective in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government Elizabeths government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII that is expanding the role of the government and effecting common law and administration throughout England During the reign of Elizabeth and shortly afterwards the population grew significantly from three million in to nearly five million in The queen ran afoul of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots who was a devoted Catholic and so was forced to abdicate her throne Scotland had recently become Protestant She fled to England where Elizabeth immediately had her arrested Mary spent the next years in confinement but proved too dangerous to keep alive as the Catholic powers in Europe considered her the legitimate ruler of England She was eventually tried for treason sentenced to death and beheaded in February Elizabethan eraedit The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth Is reign Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history The symbol of Britannia was first used in and often thereafter to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals international expansion and naval triumph over the hated Spanish foe In terms of the entire century the historian John Guy argues that England was economically healthier more expansive and more optimistic under the Tudors than at any time in a thousand years This golden age represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry music and literature The era is most famous for theatre as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of Englands past style of theatre It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad while back at home the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repulsed It was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly largely because of the periods before and after It was a brief period of largely internal peace after the battles between Catholics and Protestants during the English Reformation and before battles between parliament and the monarchy of the th century The ProtestantCatholic divide was settled for a time by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism England was also welloff compared to the other nations of Europe Italian Renaissance had ended due to foreign domination of the peninsula France was embroiled in religious battles until the Edict of Nantes in Also the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent Due to these reasons the centuries long conflict with France was largely suspended for most of Elizabeths reign Englands great rival was Spain both in Europe and the Americas Skirmishes exploded into the AngloSpanish War of Philip II of Spain tried to invade England with the Spanish Armada in but was famously defeated England made an unsuccessful attack on Portugal and the Azores the DrakeNorris Expedition of Then Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in a debilitating rebellion against English rule and Spanish naval and land forces made a series of reversals of English offensives This drained English Exchequer and economy that had been carefully restored under Elizabeths guidance English commercial and territorial expansion was limited until the Treaty of London of the year after Elizabeths death During the brief height of the AngloSpanish war almost were killed of which onethird were Spanish the rest English England during this period had a centralised organised and effective government largely due to the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII Economically the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of transAtlantic trade The National Armada memorial in Plymouth using the Britannia image to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada in William Charles May sculptor Foreign affairsedit In foreign policy Elizabeth played against each other the major powers France and Spain as well as the papacy and Scotland These were all Catholic and each wanted to end Protestantism in England Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs and only halfheartedly supported a number of ineffective poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands France and Ireland She risked war with Spain by supporting the Sea Dogs such as Walter Raleigh John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake who preyed on Spanish merchant ships carrying gold and silver from the New World The major war came with Spain When Spain tried to invade and conquer England the defeat of the Spanish Armada in associated Elizabeths name with what is popularly viewed as one of the greatest victories in English history Her enemies failed to combine and Elizabeths foreign policy successfully navigated all the dangers End of Tudor eraedit In all the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War These were questions of the relative power of the monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell affected a Tudor Revolution in government and it is certain that Parliament became more important during his chancellorship Other historians argue that the Tudor Revolution extended to the end of Elizabeths reign when the work was all consolidated Although the Privy Council declined after Elizabeths death it was very effective while she was alive Elizabeth died in at the age of th centuryedit Main article th century England Union of the Crownsedit When Elizabeth died her closest male Protestant relative was the King of Scots James VI of the House of Stuart who became King James I of England in a Union of the Crowns called James I VI He was the first monarch to rule the entire island of Britain but the countries remained separate politically Upon taking power James made peace with Spain and for the first half of the th century England remained largely inactive in European politics Several assassination attempts were made on James notably the Main Plot and Bye Plots of and most famously on November the Gunpowder Plot by a group of Catholic conspirators led by Robert Catesby which caused more antipathy in England towards Catholicism Colonial Englandedit Captain John Smith landing in Jamestown Virginia In England built an establishment at Jamestown This was the beginning of colonialism by England in North America Many English settled then in North America for religious or economic reasons Approximately of English immigrants to North America who came between were indentured servants By Chesapeake planters transported about indentured servants who accounted for more than of all European immigrants to Virginia and Maryland English Civil Waredit Further information English Civil War Maps of territory held by Royalists red and Parliamentarians green during the English Civil War King Charles I who was beheaded in The First English Civil War broke out in largely due to ongoing conflicts between James son Charles I and Parliament The defeat of the Royalist army by the New Model Army of Parliament at the Battle of Naseby in June effectively destroyed the kings forces Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark He was eventually handed over to the English Parliament in early He escaped and the Second English Civil War began but the New Model Army quickly secured the country The capture and trial of Charles led to his beheading in January at Whitehall Gate in London making England a republic This shocked the rest of Europe The king argued to the end that only God could judge him The trial and execution were a precursor of sorts to the beheading of Louis XVI years later The New Model Army command by Oliver Cromwell then scored decisive victories against Royalist armies in Ireland and Scotland Cromwell was given the title Lord Protector in making him king in all but name to his critics After he died in his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him in the office but he was forced to abdicate within a year For a while it seemed as if a new civil war would begin as the New Model Army split into factions Troops stationed in Scotland under the command of George Monck eventually marched on London to restore order Restoration of the monarchyedit The monarchy was restored in with King Charles II returning to London However the power of the crown was less than before the Civil War By the th century England rivaled the Netherlands as one of the freest countries in Europecitation needed In London was swept by the plague and in by the Great Fire for days which destroyed about buildings Glorious Revolutionedit In the Exclusion crisis consisted of attempts to prevent accession of James heir to Charles II because he was Catholic After Charles II died in and his James II VII was crowned various factions pressed for his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband Prince William III of Orange to replace him in what became known as the Glorious Revolution In November William invaded England and succeeded in being crowned James tried to retake the throne in the Williamite War but was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in In December one of the most important constitutional documents in English history the Bill of Rights was passed The Bill which restated and confirmed many provisions of the earlier Declaration of Right established restrictions on the royal prerogative For example the Sovereign could not suspend laws passed by Parliament levy taxes without parliamentary consent infringe the right to petition raise a standing army during peacetime without parliamentary consent deny the right to bear arms to Protestant subjects unduly interfere with parliamentary elections punish members of either House of Parliament for anything said during debates require excessive bail or inflict cruel and unusual punishments William was opposed to such constraints but chose not conflict with Parliament and agreed to the statute In parts of Scotland and Ireland Catholics loyal to James remained determined to see him restored to the throne and staged a series of bloody uprisings As a result any failure to pledge loyalty to the victorious King William was severely dealt with The most infamous example of this policy was the Massacre of Glencoe in Jacobite rebellions continued into the midth century until the son of the last Catholic claimant to the throne James III VIII mounted a final campaign in The Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart the Bonnie Prince Charlie of legend were defeated at the Battle of Culloden in Formation of the United Kingdomedit The Acts of Union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were a pair of Parliamentary Acts passed by both parliaments in which dissolved them in order to form a Kingdom of Great Britain governed by a unified Parliament of Great Britain according to the Treaty of Union The Acts joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland previously separate states with separate legislatures but with the same monarch into a single Kingdom of Great Britain The two countries had shared a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his double first cousin twice removed Queen Elizabeth I Although described as a Union of Crowns until there were in fact two separate Crowns resting on the same head There had been three attempts in and to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament but it was not until the early th century that the idea had the will of both political establishments behind them albeit for rather different reasons The Acts took effect on May On this date the Scots Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain based in the Palace of Westminster in London the home of the English Parliament Hence the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments On the Union historian Simon Schama said What began as a hostile merger would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history In ended the reign of Queen Anne the last monarch of the House of Stuart She was succeeded by her second cousin George I of the House of Hanover who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother Elizabeth daughter of James VI I A series of Jacobite rebellions broke out in an attempt to restore the Stuart monarchy but failed Several Planned French Invasions were attempted also with the intention of placing the Stuarts on the throne The first general laws against child labour the Factory Acts were passed in Britain in the first half of the th century Children younger than nine were not allowed to work and the work day of youth under the age of was limited to twelve hours The Act of Union of formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process and from January created a new state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland to form a single political entity The English capital of London was adopted as the capital of the Union Modern England thth centuriesedit Main article History of the United Kingdom Further information Social history of England and History of local government in England The evolution of modern local government Following the formation of the United Kingdom the history of England is no longer the history of a sovereign nation but rather the history of one of the countries of the United Kingdom Industrial Revolutionedit Main article Economic history of Britain In the late th century and early th centuries technological advances and mechanization resulted in the Industrial Revolution which transformed a largely agrarian society and caused considerable social upheaval Economies of scale and increased output per worker allowed steambased factories to undercut production of traditional cottage industries Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in mortality crime and social deprivation Many Sunday schools for preworking age children or had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangements The process of industrialization threatened many livelihoods which prompted some to sabotage factories These saboteurs were known as Luddites Local governanceedit Further information History of local government in England The Billingsgate Fish Market in the early th century Chester c The Local Government Act of was the first systematic attempt to impose a standardised system of local government in England The system was based on the existing counties today known as the historic counties since the major boundary changes of Later the Local Government Act created a second tier of local government All administrative counties and county boroughs were divided into either rural or urban districts allowing more localised administration During the s the need for local administration greatly increased prompting piecemeal adjustments The sanitary districts and parish councils had legal status but were not part of the mechanism of government They were run by volunteers often noone could be held responsible for the failure to undertake the required duties Furthermore the increased county business could not be handled by the Quarter Sessions nor was this appropriate Finally there was a desire to see local administration performed by elected officials as in the reformed municipal boroughs By these shortcomings were clear and the Local Government Act was the first systematic attempt to create a standardised system of local government in England The system was based on the existing counties now known as the historic counties since the major boundary changes of The counties themselves had had some boundary changes in the preceding years mainly to remove enclaves and exclaves The act called for the creation of statutory counties based on the ancienthistoric counties but completely corrected for enclaves and exclaves and adjusted so that each settlement was completely within one county These statutory counties were to be used for nonadministrative functions sheriff lieutenant custos rotulorum justices militia coroner or other With the advent of elected councils the offices of lord lieutenant and sheriff became largely ceremonial The statutory counties formed the basis for the socalled administrative counties However it was felt that large cities and primarily rural areas in the same county could not be well administered by the same body Thus counties in themselves or county boroughs were created to administer the urban centres of England These were part of the statutory counties but not part of the administrative counties In the Local Government Act created a second tier of local government Henceforth all administrative counties and county boroughs would be divided into either rural or urban districts allowing more localised administration The municipal boroughs reformed after were brought into this system as special cases of urban districts The urban and rural districts were based on and incorporated the sanitary districts which created in with adjustments so that districts did not overlap two counties The Act also provided for the establishment of civil parishes The Act formed an official system of civil parishes separated from the ecclesiastical parishes to carry on some of these responsibilities others being transferred to the districtcounty councils However the civil parishes were not a complete thirdtier of local government Instead they were community councils for smaller rural settlements which did not have a local government district to themselves Where urban parish councils had previously existed they were absorbed into the new urban districts th and st centuriesedit Main articles Social history of the United Kingdom present and Political history of the United Kingdom present A prolonged agricultural depression in Britain at the end of the th century together with the introduction in the th century of increasingly heavy levels of taxation on inherited wealth put an end to agricultural land as the primary source of wealth for the upper classes Many estates were sold or broken up and this trend was accelerated by the introduction of protection for agricultural tenancies encouraging outright sales from the midth century General history and political issuesedit Victory in Europe Day celebrations in London May Following years of political and military agitation for Home Rule for Ireland the AngloIrish treaty of established the Irish Free State now the Republic of Ireland as a separate state leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom The official name of the UK thus became The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland England as part of the UK joined the European Economic Community in which became the European Union in There is a movement in England to create a devolved English Parliament This would give England a local Parliament like those already functioning for Scotland Northern Ireland and Wales This issue is referred to as the West Lothian question Political history and local governmentedit Further information History of local government in England A Local Government Commission was wound up in and replaced with a Royal Commission known as the RedcliffeMaud commission In it recommended a system of singletier unitary authorities for the whole of England apart from three metropolitan areas of Merseyside Selnec Greater Manchester and West Midlands Birmingham and the Black Country which were to have both a metropolitan council and district councils This report was accepted by the Labour Party government of the time despite considerable opposition but the Conservative Party won the June general election and on a manifesto that committed them to a twotier structure The reforms arising from the Local Government Act of resulted in the most uniform and simplified system of local government which has been used in England They effectively wiped away everything that had gone before and built an administrative system from scratch All previous administrative districts statutory counties administrative counties county boroughs municipal boroughs counties corporate civil parishes were abolished The aim of the act was to establish a uniform two tier system across the country Onto the blank canvas new counties were created to cover the entire country many of these were obviously based on the historic counties but there were some major changes especially in the north This uniform twotier system lasted only years In the metropolitan county councils and Greater London were abolished This restored autonomy in effect the old county borough status to the metropolitan and London boroughs The Local Government Act established a commission Local Government Commission for England to examine the issues and make recommendations on where unitary authorities should be established It was considered too expensive to make the system entirely unitary and also there would doubtlessly be cases where the twotier system functioned well The commission recommended that many counties be moved to completely unitary systems that some cities become unitary authorities but that the remainder of their parent counties remain twotier and that in some counties the status quo should remain The ratecapping rebellion was a campaign within English local councils in which aimed to force the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher to withdraw powers to restrict the spending of councils The campaigns tactic was that councils whose budgets were restricted would refuse to set any budget at all for the financial year requiring the Government to intervene directly in providing local services or to concede However all councils which initially refused to set a rate eventually did so and the campaign failed to change Government policy Powers to restrict council budgets have remained in place ever since In the Lieutenancies Act was passed This firmly separated all local authority areas whether unitary or twotier from the geographical concept of a county as high level spatial unit The lieutenancies it established became known as ceremonial counties since they were no longer administrative divisions The counties represent a compromise between the historic counties and the counties established in While the Labour government devolved power to Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland it refused to create a devolved Assembly or parliament for England planning instead to introduce eight regional assemblies around England to devolve power to the regions In the event only a London Assembly and directly elected Mayor was established Rejection in a referendum of a proposed NorthEast Assembly in effectively scrapped those plans A precondition of having a regional assembly was for the whole area to move to unitary authority status Since the general election the government has floated the idea of voluntary mergers of local councils avoiding a costly reorganisation but achieving desired reform For instance the guiding principles of the governments New Localism demand levels of efficiency not present in the current overduplicated twotier structure Recent changesedit In new changes to local government were made whereby a number of new unitary authorities were created in areas which previously had a twotier system of counties and districts In five shire counties the functions of the county and district councils were combined into a single authority and in two counties the powers of the county council were absorbed into a significantly reduced number of districts The abolition of regional development agencies and the creation of Local enterprise partnerships were announced as part of the June United Kingdom budget On June a letter was sent from the Department of Communities and Local Government and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills to local authority and business leaders inviting proposals to replace regional development agencies in their areas by September On September details were released of proposals for local enterprise partnerships that had been received On October during the Conservative Party Conference it was revealed that had been given the provisional green light to proceed and others may later be accepted with amendments bids were announced as successful on October Local Government Commission for England From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For the commission of the same name established in The Banham Commission see Local Government Commission for England The Local Government Commission for England was established by the Local Government Act to review the organisation of local government and make such proposals as are hereinafter authorised for effecting changes appearing to the Commissions desirable in the interests of effective and convenient local government The Act also provided for a Local Government Commission for Wales Contents Membership The Review process The Commissions recommendations o West Midlands Special Review Area Report No o West Midlands General Review Area Report No o East Midlands General Review Area Report No o South Western General Review Area Report No o Tyneside Special Review Area Report No o North Eastern General Review Area Report No o West Yorkshire Special Review Area Report No o York and North Midlands General Review Area Report No o Lincolnshire and East Anglia General Review Area Report No o North Western General Review Area o South East Lancashire Special Review Area o Mersey Special Review Area o Southern General Review Area Achievements and effectiveness References Membershipedit The initial members of the commission were appointed by warrant dated October The chairman was Sir Henry Drummond Hancock and the deputy chairman was Michael Edward Rowe The other members of the commission were Ruth Burton Buckley Bernard Donald Storey and Ernest William Woodhead They were joined on January by Professor Ely Devons and on July by Robert Hughes Parry On the death of Woodhead Leslie Robert Missen was made a member The last member to be appointed was Professor Bryan KeithLucas on June The Review processedit The Commission carried out reviews of two types of areas five Special Review Areas covering the major conurbations outside London and seven General Review Areas covering regions comprising a number of administrative counties and county boroughs The Commissions remit did not extend to the Metropolitan Area which was under review by the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London On February the Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced in the Commons the appointment of a Royal Commission to review the structure of local government in England more radically The reviews were formally brought to an end in by the Local Government Termination of Reviews Act which dissolved the Commission Most outstanding recommendations were abandoned by the government Review Area Review Commenced Draft Proposals Report presented West Midlands SRA March April July East Midlands GRA March April July West Midlands GRA March April July South Western GRA December July February North Eastern GRA December April November Tyneside SRA January February July York and North Midlands GRA April September May West Yorkshire SRA April July March Lincolnshire and East Anglia GRA August May May Merseyside SRA October December Not presented South East Lancashire SRA October December Not presented North Western GRA October October Not presented Southern GRA May Not presented Not presented An enquiry into the Commission recommendations was ordered to be held commencing on October An enquiry into the Commission recommendations was ordered to be held commencing on March The NorthWestern GRA consisted of the administrative counties of Cheshire Lancashire Cumberland and Westmorland except those areas in the Merseyside and South East Lancashire SRAs and the county boroughs of BarrowinFurness Blackburn Blackpool Burnley Carlisle Chester Preston St Helens Southport Warrington and Wigan The Southern GRA consisted of the administrative counties of Berkshire Buckinghamshire Dorset Hampshire Isle of Wight Oxfordshire and Wiltshire along with the county boroughs of Bournemouth Oxford Portsmouth Reading and Southampton No reviews were commenced for the administrative counties of Essex Hertfordshire Kent Surrey East or West Sussex or in the county boroughs of Brighton Canterbury Eastbourne Hastings or SouthendonSea Parts of Essex Hertfordshire Kent and Surrey including the county boroughs of East Ham West Ham and Croydon were included in the Metropolitan Area The Commissions recommendationsedit The commissions reports made a number of recommendations for the completed reviews Only some of these were carried into effect West Midlands Special Review Area Report Noedit The special review area had been defined in Schedule of the Local Government Act It comprised the conurbation of Birmingham and the Black Country and included six county boroughs four noncounty boroughs and ten urban districts in the administrative county of Staffordshire three boroughs in Worcestershire and two boroughs and two rural parishes in Warwickshire The commission recommended the creation of five enlarged county boroughs in the Black Country based on the existing county boroughs of Dudley Smethwick Walsall West Bromwich and Wolverhampton Solihull was also to be constituted a county borough while Aldridge and Brownhills urban districts were to merge to form AldridgeBrownhills and a new noncounty borough was to be formed from the borough of Stourbridge and the urban district of Amblecote Draft proposals had Halesowen becoming part of the Smethwick borough The recommendations were largely implemented in with Solihull becoming a county borough in The enlarged county borough based on Smethwick was named Warley West Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Herefordshire Salop or Shropshire Warwickshire Staffordshire and Worcestershire except the parts included in the West Midlands SRA and the county boroughs of Burton upon Trent Coventry StokeonTrent and Worcester The main changes implemented in the area were the realignment of the StaffordshireWarwickshire county boundary in the Tamworth area with the abolition of the Tamworth Rural District and extension of the borough of Tamworth in the inclusion of a number of small urban districts and boroughs which became rural boroughs in rural districts in Shropshire in and the abolition of two small urban districts in Herefordshire in The proposals to make Burton upon Trent and Worcester into noncounty boroughs were not implemented Burton had brought a court case challenging the action East Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire Isle of Ely Leicestershire Northamptonshire Rutland and the Soke of Peterborough and the county boroughs of Leicester and Northampton The review area included some of the smallest in both area and population administrative counties in England Draft proposals were quite radical as follows Cambridgeshire Isle of Ely Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough to unite and form a new county of Cambridgeshire to this would also be added the Ketton Rural District from Rutland Stamford from Kesteven in Lincolnshire and Royston in Hertfordshire the remainder of Rutland the Oakham Rural District Uppingham Rural District and Oakham urban district would be added to Leicestershire Cambridge would become a county borough These proposals were greatly controversial especially in Rutland which put forth a countersuggestions to add surrounding areas to Rutland instead from surrounding counties and the final proposals were watered down somewhat merger of Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough to which would be joined Thorney Rural District from the Isle of Ely merger of Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely to form Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely including Royston the merger of Leicestershire and Rutland which was to form a single rural district in a county of Leicester and Rutland Extension of the two county boroughs of Leicester and Northampton was also recommended and that the existing borough of Luton in Bedfordshire be constituted a county borough but declined to recommend that Dunstable should be added to Luton The proposal to merge Leicestershire and Rutland remained controversial and an inquiry into objections made to this part of the report was held between July and July Objections were voiced by Rutland County Council a number of district and parish councils in that county as well as local individuals and organisations In August it was announced that the merger would not go ahead The other two mergers of administrative counties did take place with the creation of new administrative counties of Huntingdon and Peterborough and Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely excluding Royston in A larger nonmetropolitan county of Cambridgeshire covering all four administrative counties would be formed in Luton became a county borough in and the extensions to Northampton and Leicester were made in and respectively South Western General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Cornwall Devon Gloucestershire and Somerset the Isles of Scilly and the county boroughs of Bath Bristol Exeter Gloucester and Plymouth The Commissions proposals included the creation of two new county boroughs one based on the existing borough of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire also including Charlton Kings urban district the other to be formed from the areas of the borough of Torquay the urban districts of Brixham and Paignton and parts of Newton Abbot and Totnes rural districts in Devon Extensions were also recommended for the existing county boroughs of Bristol Gloucester Bath and Exeter and alterations were proposed for the GloucestershireSomerset DevonCornwall county boundaries The draft proposals had not recommended the creation of these county boroughs Of the two proposed county boroughs only the Devon one was formed as Torbay in None of the extensions of existing county boroughs was made and no alteration in the boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset was made The county boundary between Devon and Cornwall was realigned by the abolition of Broadwoodwidger Rural District in A number of small urban districts and boroughs were merged into rural districts in Devon in and Cornwall in under reviews made by the two county councils The final proposals also proposed transferring Lyme Regis from Dorset to Devon with the backing of the local council which made a unanimous decision to seek the transfer Ambitions of Wiltshire on Frome and Dorset on Yeovil were rejected The proposal for a Cheltenham county borough was rejected in October Tyneside Special Review Area Report Noedit The Tyneside SRA had been defined in the Act and consisted of the Tyneside conurbation The commission recommended in the creation of a new County of Tyneside divided into four boroughs There was to be a redistribution of services between the county and borough tiers The final proposal was published on July and proposed a Tyneside county roughly as follows Newcastle upon Tyne Gosforth Newburn part of Castle Ward Rural District Tynemouth Wallsend Whitley Bay part of Longbenton Gateshead Felling Whickham Blaydon Ryton South Shields Jarrow Hebburn Boldon Following a number of objections an inquiry was held into the proposals in Newcastle City Council wanted a single county borough whilst the other county borough councils wished to see an area of contiguous county boroughs The decision was put to the Minister in late On December the Minister Richard Crossman proposed a large single county borough of Tyneside which would have had a population of making it the second largest in England after Birmingham He wrote to authorities asking for comments ahead of a public inquiry in March On March the Minister for Housing and Local Government being of the opinion that the proposals of the Commission are not apt for the purpose of securing effective and local government in the area formally rejected the commissions scheme and substituted his own proposal The county borough was not formed and local government in the area remained unchanged until the Local Government Act included Tyneside in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear along with Sunderland from Wearside North Eastern General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative county of North Riding of Yorkshire and those parts of the counties of Durham and Northumberland not part of the Tyneside special review area and the county boroughs of Darlington Middlesbrough Sunderland and West Hartlepool The Commissions proposals included the creation of a new County Borough of Teesside including Middlesbrough and other adjacent boroughs and urban districts the merger of the county borough of West Hartlepool with the noncounty borough of Hartlepool and part of Stockton Rural District and the extension of the areas of Sunderland and Darlington county boroughs The proposals were carried out in West Yorkshire Special Review Area Report Noedit The West Yorkshire SRA had been defined in the Act covering the western industrialised part of the West Riding of Yorkshire The commission proposed the enlargement of the county boroughs of Bradford and Leeds the amalgamation of a number of county districts to form three new districts and the creation of a new noncounty borough Bradford county borough was to absorb part of Queensbury and Shelf urban district but was to lose the Tong area Halifax county borough was to take in part of Sowerby Bridge urban district Leeds and Huddersfield county boroughs were to remain unchanged The county borough of Dewsbury was to be enlarged and possibly renamed to include the municipal boroughs of Batley and Ossett most of Spenborough borough and Heckmondwike and Mirfield urban districts A new noncounty borough was to form by the merger of the county borough of Wakefield Horbury urban district and most of Stanley urban district The borough of Keighley was to be left unchanged The borough of Brighouse was to merge with Elland urban district and part of Queensbury and Shelf UD The boundaries of the borough of Pudsey were to change by gaining the Tong area from Bradford county borough The borough of Pontefract was to merge with the urban districts of Featherstone and Knottingley with boundary changes The borough of Castleford was to unite with Normanton urban district with boundary changes The borough of Morley was to be enlarged by absorbing part of Spenborough Garforth and Rothwell urban districts were to be united with part of Stanley urban district and part of Tadcaster Rural District Denby Dale Kirkburton and Holmfirth urban districts were to merge Colne Valley and Meltham urban districts were to be united Baildon Bingley Denholme and Shipley urban districts were to form a district Aireborough and Horsforth urban districts were to unite York and North Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Derbyshire Nottinghamshire Yorkshire East Riding and the part of Yorkshire West Riding not included in the West Yorkshire Special Review Area and the county boroughs of Barnsley Derby Doncaster KingstonuponHull Nottingham Rotherham Sheffield and York The commission recommended that the county borough of Barnsley be reduced to a noncounty borough in the administrative county of Yorkshire West Riding and that all the remaining county boroughs continue to exist all with extended boundaries It was also recommended that part of the administrative county of Yorkshire West Riding be transferred to the North Riding The area concerned was The boroughs of Harrogate and Ripon The urban district of Knaresborough Ripon and Pateley Bridge Rural District Most of Nidderdale Rural District Part of the administrative county of Yorkshire North Riding was to be transferred to the East Riding namely The borough of Scarborough The urban district of Scalby Most of the rural district of Scarborough The expansions of county boroughs proposed were Sheffield to take in part of the rural district of Chesterfield in Derbyshire and Wortley Nottingham to take in nearly all of the urban districts of Carlton West Bridgford and Beeston and Stapleford parts of Arnold Urban District the rural districts of Basford and Bingham and some of Long Eaton Urban District in Derbyshire This would have increased the population of Nottingham greatly from to Hull to take in most of Haltemprice urban district and parts of the rural districts of Beverley and Holderness Derby would expand greatly with parts of the rural districts of South East Derbyshire Belper and Repton nearly doubling its population from to Rotherham would increase its population substantially by taking in most of Rawmarsh urban district and part of Rotherham Rural District York would expand into Nidderdale Flaxton and Derwent Rural Districts Doncaster would be extended slightly by adding part of Doncaster Rural District Ideas not taken up included the amalgamation of the three Yorkshire administrative counties to form a single administrative county of Yorkshire and the request of Chesterfield to become a county borough A draft proposal for an area of km with a population of including Swadlincote to be transferred to Leicestershire was withdrawn in the final recommendations None of these recommendations was put into force Objections were voiced to the extensions of Nottingham Sheffield and York county boroughs into adjoining areas The area proposed to become part of the North Riding became part of North Yorkshire in Lincolnshire and East Anglia General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Lincolnshire Parts of Holland Lincolnshire Parts of Kesteven Lincolnshire Parts of Lindsey Norfolk East Suffolk and West Suffolk and the county boroughs of Great Yarmouth Grimsby Ipswich Lincoln and Norwich The Commission recommended the amalgamation of the counties of Holland and Kesteven but the retention of two county councils for Suffolk The report called for the enlargement of four of the county boroughs with Grimsby absorbing the noncounty borough of Cleethorpes with the fifth Great Yarmouth being reduced to a municipal borough in the county of Norfolk Changes in county boundaries proposed would have led to an area of East Suffolk adjoining Great Yarmouth passing to Norfolk The draft proposals had also suggested that Stamford and area be transferred to the Soke of Peterborough or rather to Huntingdon and Peterborough most of Marshland Rural District to be transferred to Cambridgeshire from Norfolk and that the area of Cambridgeshire around Newmarket should be transferred to West Suffolk These proposals were toned down or withdrawn in the final proposals Inquiries were held on some of the proposed changes the extension of Norwich demotion of Yarmouth and amalgamation of Holland and Kesteven but no alterations were made in the local government of the area until North Western General Review Areaedit No final proposals were produced for the North West region consisting of Cumberland Westmorland Lancashire and Cheshire except those parts in the South East Lancashire and Merseyside special review areas Draft proposals were presented in October and were limited in scope It was proposed that BarrowinFurness become a noncounty borough and extensions to the boundaries of the other county boroughs in the area The creation of a county of Cumbria to cover Cumberland Westmorland and Furness although floated was not in the draft recommendations South East Lancashire Special Review Areaedit The county boroughs of Bolton Bury Oldham Rochdale Salford and Stockport and the municipal boroughs of Stretford and AshtonunderLyne put forward a joint proposal for consideration by the Commission in July This proposal would have seen an extension of county boroughs and the creation of two new county boroughs based on Stretford and Ashton such that the core urban area was contiguous county boroughs Draft proposals were presented in December and would have seen a new county created based on the Manchester conurbation divided into nine mostpurposes boroughs based on Manchester Salford AltrinchamSaleStretford the future Trafford Stockport AshtonunderLyneHydeMossley the future Tameside Oldham Rochdale Bury Bolton Mersey Special Review Areaedit Draft proposals were presented in December They were limited in scope and proposed boundary alterations in county boroughs and county districts only Southern General Review Areaedit No proposals were put forward by the Commission for this area before their dissolution Among the representations made during this review were The county boroughs of Oxford and Reading sought boundary extensions The county borough of Bournemouth proposed an extension to absorb the boroughs of Christchurch and Poole The borough of Poole itself sought county borough status while Dorset county council strongly objected to both ideas The municipal boroughs of High Wycombe and Slough sought county borough status The Berkshire and Oxfordshire Federations of Labour Parties suggested the creation of Thameshire by the amalgamation of Berkshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and southern Northamptonshire The idea was opposed by the county councils of Berkshire and Oxfordshire Aldershot sought county borough status on much larger boundaries including Farnham and Frimley and Camberley in Surrey Achievements and effectivenessedit The commission met with limited success with only a few recommendations carried out Typically there was a lack of consensus for proposals and all met with some level of appeal or disdain As a result the reporting process could take as long as four years The lack of executive powers meant that proposals could be rejected entirely and the reviews did not allow for suggested changes to the functions of local authorities Throughout the period actioning the recommendations of the commission was kept off the policy agenda because of pressure on legislative timetables with other issues such as postwar redevelopment lack of money to fund reorganisation and public apathy towards the issue Referencesedit London Gazette issue no November London Gazette issue no January London Gazette issue no July London Gazette issue no March London Gazette issue no July Radical Review of Local Government The Times February Halt to local reorganization The Times May Jump up to a b c d e How Local government Areas Stand Today The Times February London Gazette June London Gazette March Mergers of Midland Counties Proposed The Times March Local government Commission for England Report number West Midlands general review area at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Outcry Grows Over Midland Counties The Times March New amalgamations proposed for small counties The Times August Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the East Midlands general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Report of the inquiry into objections to the proposal to amalgamate Leicestershire and Rutland and to the recommendations that the present county of Rutland subject to minor boundary adjustment should form a single rural district at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link New Amalgamations Proposed For Small Counties The Times August Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the South Western general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Somerset Unlikely to Lose Towns The Times July Letter to the Editor by Ralph Oliver Mayor of Lyme Regis December County borough status advised for Cheltenham and Torbay The Times February Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the Tyneside special review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Tyneside Hearing Opens The Times July Tyne Plan Already Obsolete The Times July Tyneside Boundary Decision Soon The Times October More Groups of Towns The Times December Minister wants allpurpose borough for Tyneside The Times December London Gazette March Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the North Eastern general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the West Yorkshire special review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Heavy Woollen Area Plan The Times July Local Government Commission for England From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For the commission of the same name established in The Banham Commission see Local Government Commission for England The Local Government Commission for England was established by the Local Government Act to review the organisation of local government and make such proposals as are hereinafter authorised for effecting changes appearing to the Commissions desirable in the interests of effective and convenient local government The Act also provided for a Local Government Commission for Wales Contents Membership The Review process The Commissions recommendations o West Midlands Special Review Area Report No o West Midlands General Review Area Report No o East Midlands General Review Area Report No o South Western General Review Area Report No o Tyneside Special Review Area Report No o North Eastern General Review Area Report No o West Yorkshire Special Review Area Report No o York and North Midlands General Review Area Report No o Lincolnshire and East Anglia General Review Area Report No o North Western General Review Area o South East Lancashire Special Review Area o Mersey Special Review Area o Southern General Review Area Achievements and effectiveness References Membershipedit The initial members of the commission were appointed by warrant dated October The chairman was Sir Henry Drummond Hancock and the deputy chairman was Michael Edward Rowe The other members of the commission were Ruth Burton Buckley Bernard Donald Storey and Ernest William Woodhead They were joined on January by Professor Ely Devons and on July by Robert Hughes Parry On the death of Woodhead Leslie Robert Missen was made a member The last member to be appointed was Professor Bryan KeithLucas on June The Review processedit The Commission carried out reviews of two types of areas five Special Review Areas covering the major conurbations outside London and seven General Review Areas covering regions comprising a number of administrative counties and county boroughs The Commissions remit did not extend to the Metropolitan Area which was under review by the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London On February the Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced in the Commons the appointment of a Royal Commission to review the structure of local government in England more radically The reviews were formally brought to an end in by the Local Government Termination of Reviews Act which dissolved the Commission Most outstanding recommendations were abandoned by the government Review Area Review Commenced Draft Proposals Report presented West Midlands SRA March April July East Midlands GRA March April July West Midlands GRA March April July South Western GRA December July February North Eastern GRA December April November Tyneside SRA January February July York and North Midlands GRA April September May West Yorkshire SRA April July March Lincolnshire and East Anglia GRA August May May Merseyside SRA October December Not presented South East Lancashire SRA October December Not presented North Western GRA October October Not presented Southern GRA May Not presented Not presented An enquiry into the Commission recommendations was ordered to be held commencing on October An enquiry into the Commission recommendations was ordered to be held commencing on March The NorthWestern GRA consisted of the administrative counties of Cheshire Lancashire Cumberland and Westmorland except those areas in the Merseyside and South East Lancashire SRAs and the county boroughs of BarrowinFurness Blackburn Blackpool Burnley Carlisle Chester Preston St Helens Southport Warrington and Wigan The Southern GRA consisted of the administrative counties of Berkshire Buckinghamshire Dorset Hampshire Isle of Wight Oxfordshire and Wiltshire along with the county boroughs of Bournemouth Oxford Portsmouth Reading and Southampton No reviews were commenced for the administrative counties of Essex Hertfordshire Kent Surrey East or West Sussex or in the county boroughs of Brighton Canterbury Eastbourne Hastings or SouthendonSea Parts of Essex Hertfordshire Kent and Surrey including the county boroughs of East Ham West Ham and Croydon were included in the Metropolitan Area The Commissions recommendationsedit The commissions reports made a number of recommendations for the completed reviews Only some of these were carried into effect West Midlands Special Review Area Report Noedit The special review area had been defined in Schedule of the Local Government Act It comprised the conurbation of Birmingham and the Black Country and included six county boroughs four noncounty boroughs and ten urban districts in the administrative county of Staffordshire three boroughs in Worcestershire and two boroughs and two rural parishes in Warwickshire The commission recommended the creation of five enlarged county boroughs in the Black Country based on the existing county boroughs of Dudley Smethwick Walsall West Bromwich and Wolverhampton Solihull was also to be constituted a county borough while Aldridge and Brownhills urban districts were to merge to form AldridgeBrownhills and a new noncounty borough was to be formed from the borough of Stourbridge and the urban district of Amblecote Draft proposals had Halesowen becoming part of the Smethwick borough The recommendations were largely implemented in with Solihull becoming a county borough in The enlarged county borough based on Smethwick was named Warley West Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Herefordshire Salop or Shropshire Warwickshire Staffordshire and Worcestershire except the parts included in the West Midlands SRA and the county boroughs of Burton upon Trent Coventry StokeonTrent and Worcester The main changes implemented in the area were the realignment of the StaffordshireWarwickshire county boundary in the Tamworth area with the abolition of the Tamworth Rural District and extension of the borough of Tamworth in the inclusion of a number of small urban districts and boroughs which became rural boroughs in rural districts in Shropshire in and the abolition of two small urban districts in Herefordshire in The proposals to make Burton upon Trent and Worcester into noncounty boroughs were not implemented Burton had brought a court case challenging the action East Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire Isle of Ely Leicestershire Northamptonshire Rutland and the Soke of Peterborough and the county boroughs of Leicester and Northampton The review area included some of the smallest in both area and population administrative counties in England Draft proposals were quite radical as follows Cambridgeshire Isle of Ely Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough to unite and form a new county of Cambridgeshire to this would also be added the Ketton Rural District from Rutland Stamford from Kesteven in Lincolnshire and Royston in Hertfordshire the remainder of Rutland the Oakham Rural District Uppingham Rural District and Oakham urban district would be added to Leicestershire Cambridge would become a county borough These proposals were greatly controversial especially in Rutland which put forth a countersuggestions to add surrounding areas to Rutland instead from surrounding counties and the final proposals were watered down somewhat merger of Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough to which would be joined Thorney Rural District from the Isle of Ely merger of Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely to form Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely including Royston the merger of Leicestershire and Rutland which was to form a single rural district in a county of Leicester and Rutland Extension of the two county boroughs of Leicester and Northampton was also recommended and that the existing borough of Luton in Bedfordshire be constituted a county borough but declined to recommend that Dunstable should be added to Luton The proposal to merge Leicestershire and Rutland remained controversial and an inquiry into objections made to this part of the report was held between July and July Objections were voiced by Rutland County Council a number of district and parish councils in that county as well as local individuals and organisations In August it was announced that the merger would not go ahead The other two mergers of administrative counties did take place with the creation of new administrative counties of Huntingdon and Peterborough and Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely excluding Royston in A larger nonmetropolitan county of Cambridgeshire covering all four administrative counties would be formed in Luton became a county borough in and the extensions to Northampton and Leicester were made in and respectively South Western General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Cornwall Devon Gloucestershire and Somerset the Isles of Scilly and the county boroughs of Bath Bristol Exeter Gloucester and Plymouth The Commissions proposals included the creation of two new county boroughs one based on the existing borough of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire also including Charlton Kings urban district the other to be formed from the areas of the borough of Torquay the urban districts of Brixham and Paignton and parts of Newton Abbot and Totnes rural districts in Devon Extensions were also recommended for the existing county boroughs of Bristol Gloucester Bath and Exeter and alterations were proposed for the GloucestershireSomerset DevonCornwall county boundaries The draft proposals had not recommended the creation of these county boroughs Of the two proposed county boroughs only the Devon one was formed as Torbay in None of the extensions of existing county boroughs was made and no alteration in the boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset was made The county boundary between Devon and Cornwall was realigned by the abolition of Broadwoodwidger Rural District in A number of small urban districts and boroughs were merged into rural districts in Devon in and Cornwall in under reviews made by the two county councils The final proposals also proposed transferring Lyme Regis from Dorset to Devon with the backing of the local council which made a unanimous decision to seek the transfer Ambitions of Wiltshire on Frome and Dorset on Yeovil were rejected The proposal for a Cheltenham county borough was rejected in October Tyneside Special Review Area Report Noedit The Tyneside SRA had been defined in the Act and consisted of the Tyneside conurbation The commission recommended in the creation of a new County of Tyneside divided into four boroughs There was to be a redistribution of services between the county and borough tiers The final proposal was published on July and proposed a Tyneside county roughly as follows Newcastle upon Tyne Gosforth Newburn part of Castle Ward Rural District Tynemouth Wallsend Whitley Bay part of Longbenton Gateshead Felling Whickham Blaydon Ryton South Shields Jarrow Hebburn Boldon Following a number of objections an inquiry was held into the proposals in Newcastle City Council wanted a single county borough whilst the other county borough councils wished to see an area of contiguous county boroughs The decision was put to the Minister in late On December the Minister Richard Crossman proposed a large single county borough of Tyneside which would have had a population of making it the second largest in England after Birmingham He wrote to authorities asking for comments ahead of a public inquiry in March On March the Minister for Housing and Local Government being of the opinion that the proposals of the Commission are not apt for the purpose of securing effective and local government in the area formally rejected the commissions scheme and substituted his own proposal The county borough was not formed and local government in the area remained unchanged until the Local Government Act included Tyneside in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear along with Sunderland from Wearside North Eastern General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative county of North Riding of Yorkshire and those parts of the counties of Durham and Northumberland not part of the Tyneside special review area and the county boroughs of Darlington Middlesbrough Sunderland and West Hartlepool The Commissions proposals included the creation of a new County Borough of Teesside including Middlesbrough and other adjacent boroughs and urban districts the merger of the county borough of West Hartlepool with the noncounty borough of Hartlepool and part of Stockton Rural District and the extension of the areas of Sunderland and Darlington county boroughs The proposals were carried out in West Yorkshire Special Review Area Report Noedit The West Yorkshire SRA had been defined in the Act covering the western industrialised part of the West Riding of Yorkshire The commission proposed the enlargement of the county boroughs of Bradford and Leeds the amalgamation of a number of county districts to form three new districts and the creation of a new noncounty borough Bradford county borough was to absorb part of Queensbury and Shelf urban district but was to lose the Tong area Halifax county borough was to take in part of Sowerby Bridge urban district Leeds and Huddersfield county boroughs were to remain unchanged The county borough of Dewsbury was to be enlarged and possibly renamed to include the municipal boroughs of Batley and Ossett most of Spenborough borough and Heckmondwike and Mirfield urban districts A new noncounty borough was to form by the merger of the county borough of Wakefield Horbury urban district and most of Stanley urban district The borough of Keighley was to be left unchanged The borough of Brighouse was to merge with Elland urban district and part of Queensbury and Shelf UD The boundaries of the borough of Pudsey were to change by gaining the Tong area from Bradford county borough The borough of Pontefract was to merge with the urban districts of Featherstone and Knottingley with boundary changes The borough of Castleford was to unite with Normanton urban district with boundary changes The borough of Morley was to be enlarged by absorbing part of Spenborough Garforth and Rothwell urban districts were to be united with part of Stanley urban district and part of Tadcaster Rural District Denby Dale Kirkburton and Holmfirth urban districts were to merge Colne Valley and Meltham urban districts were to be united Baildon Bingley Denholme and Shipley urban districts were to form a district Aireborough and Horsforth urban districts were to unite York and North Midlands General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Derbyshire Nottinghamshire Yorkshire East Riding and the part of Yorkshire West Riding not included in the West Yorkshire Special Review Area and the county boroughs of Barnsley Derby Doncaster KingstonuponHull Nottingham Rotherham Sheffield and York The commission recommended that the county borough of Barnsley be reduced to a noncounty borough in the administrative county of Yorkshire West Riding and that all the remaining county boroughs continue to exist all with extended boundaries It was also recommended that part of the administrative county of Yorkshire West Riding be transferred to the North Riding The area concerned was The boroughs of Harrogate and Ripon The urban district of Knaresborough Ripon and Pateley Bridge Rural District Most of Nidderdale Rural District Part of the administrative county of Yorkshire North Riding was to be transferred to the East Riding namely The borough of Scarborough The urban district of Scalby Most of the rural district of Scarborough The expansions of county boroughs proposed were Sheffield to take in part of the rural district of Chesterfield in Derbyshire and Wortley Nottingham to take in nearly all of the urban districts of Carlton West Bridgford and Beeston and Stapleford parts of Arnold Urban District the rural districts of Basford and Bingham and some of Long Eaton Urban District in Derbyshire This would have increased the population of Nottingham greatly from to Hull to take in most of Haltemprice urban district and parts of the rural districts of Beverley and Holderness Derby would expand greatly with parts of the rural districts of South East Derbyshire Belper and Repton nearly doubling its population from to Rotherham would increase its population substantially by taking in most of Rawmarsh urban district and part of Rotherham Rural District York would expand into Nidderdale Flaxton and Derwent Rural Districts Doncaster would be extended slightly by adding part of Doncaster Rural District Ideas not taken up included the amalgamation of the three Yorkshire administrative counties to form a single administrative county of Yorkshire and the request of Chesterfield to become a county borough A draft proposal for an area of km with a population of including Swadlincote to be transferred to Leicestershire was withdrawn in the final recommendations None of these recommendations was put into force Objections were voiced to the extensions of Nottingham Sheffield and York county boroughs into adjoining areas The area proposed to become part of the North Riding became part of North Yorkshire in Lincolnshire and East Anglia General Review Area Report Noedit The area consisted of the administrative counties of Lincolnshire Parts of Holland Lincolnshire Parts of Kesteven Lincolnshire Parts of Lindsey Norfolk East Suffolk and West Suffolk and the county boroughs of Great Yarmouth Grimsby Ipswich Lincoln and Norwich The Commission recommended the amalgamation of the counties of Holland and Kesteven but the retention of two county councils for Suffolk The report called for the enlargement of four of the county boroughs with Grimsby absorbing the noncounty borough of Cleethorpes with the fifth Great Yarmouth being reduced to a municipal borough in the county of Norfolk Changes in county boundaries proposed would have led to an area of East Suffolk adjoining Great Yarmouth passing to Norfolk The draft proposals had also suggested that Stamford and area be transferred to the Soke of Peterborough or rather to Huntingdon and Peterborough most of Marshland Rural District to be transferred to Cambridgeshire from Norfolk and that the area of Cambridgeshire around Newmarket should be transferred to West Suffolk These proposals were toned down or withdrawn in the final proposals Inquiries were held on some of the proposed changes the extension of Norwich demotion of Yarmouth and amalgamation of Holland and Kesteven but no alterations were made in the local government of the area until North Western General Review Areaedit No final proposals were produced for the North West region consisting of Cumberland Westmorland Lancashire and Cheshire except those parts in the South East Lancashire and Merseyside special review areas Draft proposals were presented in October and were limited in scope It was proposed that BarrowinFurness become a noncounty borough and extensions to the boundaries of the other county boroughs in the area The creation of a county of Cumbria to cover Cumberland Westmorland and Furness although floated was not in the draft recommendations South East Lancashire Special Review Areaedit The county boroughs of Bolton Bury Oldham Rochdale Salford and Stockport and the municipal boroughs of Stretford and AshtonunderLyne put forward a joint proposal for consideration by the Commission in July This proposal would have seen an extension of county boroughs and the creation of two new county boroughs based on Stretford and Ashton such that the core urban area was contiguous county boroughs Draft proposals were presented in December and would have seen a new county created based on the Manchester conurbation divided into nine mostpurposes boroughs based on Manchester Salford AltrinchamSaleStretford the future Trafford Stockport AshtonunderLyneHydeMossley the future Tameside Oldham Rochdale Bury Bolton Mersey Special Review Areaedit Draft proposals were presented in December They were limited in scope and proposed boundary alterations in county boroughs and county districts only Southern General Review Areaedit No proposals were put forward by the Commission for this area before their dissolution Among the representations made during this review were The county boroughs of Oxford and Reading sought boundary extensions The county borough of Bournemouth proposed an extension to absorb the boroughs of Christchurch and Poole The borough of Poole itself sought county borough status while Dorset county council strongly objected to both ideas The municipal boroughs of High Wycombe and Slough sought county borough status The Berkshire and Oxfordshire Federations of Labour Parties suggested the creation of Thameshire by the amalgamation of Berkshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and southern Northamptonshire The idea was opposed by the county councils of Berkshire and Oxfordshire Aldershot sought county borough status on much larger boundaries including Farnham and Frimley and Camberley in Surrey Achievements and effectivenessedit The commission met with limited success with only a few recommendations carried out Typically there was a lack of consensus for proposals and all met with some level of appeal or disdain As a result the reporting process could take as long as four years The lack of executive powers meant that proposals could be rejected entirely and the reviews did not allow for suggested changes to the functions of local authorities Throughout the period actioning the recommendations of the commission was kept off the policy agenda because of pressure on legislative timetables with other issues such as postwar redevelopment lack of money to fund reorganisation and public apathy towards the issue Referencesedit London Gazette issue no November London Gazette issue no January London Gazette issue no July London Gazette issue no March London Gazette issue no July Radical Review of Local Government The Times February Halt to local reorganization The Times May Jump up to a b c d e How Local government Areas Stand Today The Times February London Gazette June London Gazette March Mergers of Midland Counties Proposed The Times March Local government Commission for England Report number West Midlands general review area at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Outcry Grows Over Midland Counties The Times March New amalgamations proposed for small counties The Times August Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the East Midlands general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Report of the inquiry into objections to the proposal to amalgamate Leicestershire and Rutland and to the recommendations that the present county of Rutland subject to minor boundary adjustment should form a single rural district at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link New Amalgamations Proposed For Small Counties The Times August Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the South Western general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Somerset Unlikely to Lose Towns The Times July Letter to the Editor by Ralph Oliver Mayor of Lyme Regis December County borough status advised for Cheltenham and Torbay The Times February Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the Tyneside special review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Tyneside Hearing Opens The Times July Tyne Plan Already Obsolete The Times July Tyneside Boundary Decision Soon The Times October More Groups of Towns The Times December Minister wants allpurpose borough for Tyneside The Times December London Gazette March Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the North Eastern general review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Local Government Commission for England report and proposals for the West Yorkshire special review area report number at BOPCRIS website Archived copy Archived from the original on Retrieved CS maint Archived copy as title link Heavy Woollen Area Plan The Times July