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Gentleman's Magazine 1812 part 2 p.234
settled the boundaries of Country Parishes much earlier.
'In later times the boundary of every Parish has been
settled with precision, and indeed rendered immutable by any
authority short of a special legislative enactment. This
exactness has been produced by the Laws for the Maintenance
and Relief of the Poor, whose claims on a Parish being
regulated by their legal settlement in it, and the
Assessment or Poor's Rate, which takes place in consequence,
being levied according to the property of the other
inhabitants, a double motive for ascertaining the Boundary
of a Parish continually subsists, and was frequently a
subject of litigation after the Poor Laws first became
burdensome.
'At that time the Parishes of the Northern Counties were
also found to be much too large for the administration of
the Poor Laws, which must always be founded upon a personal
knowledge of the situation and character of every one
applying for relief, and is therefore a subject to which no
general rule can be applied. The inconvenience which was
felt in the Northern Counties, from this cause, will be
easily explained, by stating, that 30 or 40 square miles is
there no unusual area of a Parish; in other words, that the
Parishes in the North average at seven or eight times the
area of those in the Southern Counties.
'Hence in the 13th year of Charles II. (soon after his
Restoration) a Law was passed, permitting Townships and
Villages, though not entire Parishes, severally and
distinctly to maintain their own Poor, assigning as a reason
for this innovation, 'That the inhabitants of Lancashire,
Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, the
Bishoprick of Durham, Cumberland, and Westmorland, and many
other Counties of England and Wales, by reason of the
largeness of the Parishes within the same, have not and
cannot reap the benefit of the Act of Parliament (43 Eliz.)
for the Relief of the Poor.'
'Under this law the Townships of the North have become as
distinctly limited as if they were separate Parishes; and of
course make separate returns, which, in the Abstract of
1801, are placed alphabetically in their several Wards and
Hundreds, but are now arranged under their respective
Parishes; whereby the perplexity arising from a crowd of
explanatory Notes has been avoided, and the convenience of
those who have occasion to ascertain the Population of a
whole Parish, is best consulted. This arrangement takes
place in all the Counties North of the Humber and the Dee,
and occasionally elsewhere; and those who compare the Notes
on Derbyshire, with the simplifeid order of the seven more
Northern Counties, will perhaps see cause for wishing the
improvement had been extended farther, or even throughout
the Kingdom. - In two of the Counties, Northumberland and
Westmorland, such an arrangement had previously been formed;
in the other five it now appears for the first time
*.
'In all the Southern Counties, the place which gives name to
the whole Parish is always called Parish, though it
be only part of the Parish (the less important designation
merging in the other); nor could this be avoided; but a
proper note of reference will always be found to accompany
the name of such Parishes, as also the the name of the place
so referred to. Besides this immediate and indispensable
service purpose of the Notes, which appear in the present
Abstract to the number of 2,300, they will be found to
embrace such other information as may tend to elucidate the
arrangement and connection of places, or to obviate doubts
which frequently arise where well-known places seem to have
been omitted, being indeed included in the Return of their
Parish.
'In attempting an arrangement of this kind, comprehending
the whole Kingdom, the question, What is a Parish? has often
occurred, and has been found not easily determinable. It has
been asserted, that a Parochial Chapel is that which hath
the privileges of administering the Sacraments (especially
that of Baptism), and the Office of Burial. 'For the
liberties of Baptism and Sepulture are the true distinct
Parochial Rights: and if any new Oratory had acquired and
enjoyed this immunity, then it differed not from a Parish
Church. And till the year 1300, in all trials of the Rights
of particular Churches, if it could be proved that any
Chapel had a custom fro free Baptism and Burial, such place
was adjudged to be a Parochial
Church.'
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* 'Mr. Davidson, Clerk of the Peace for the County of
Northumberland, arranged the Townships of that County, under
their several Parishes, in 1777; and W. W. Carus Wilson,
esq. an active Magistrate in Westmorland, did the same for
that County, in 1802; - in arranging the other Counties,
when original information could not be procured, recourse
was had to Mr. Carlisle's Topographical Dictionary, which
experience proved to be worthy of confidence.'
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