button to main menu  Gents Mag 1812 part 2 p.233
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Gentleman's Magazine 1812 part 2 p.233
of placing many Cities and Towns at the end of the respective Counties:- and, for the sake of comparision, other Towns, which have arisen into importance since the disuse of granting charters and immunities, although these Towns are for every purpose included within some Hundred of the County,- are placed with the rest. The most ready way therefore of finding the Population of a principal Town, is to refer to the Summary of its County, before searching for the Hundred in which it is locally situate. The Metropolis presents an unusual difficulty, as extending into two Counties, and therefore has been necessarily inserted distinctly in an Appendix. In the County Summaries the Total of entire Hundreds is usually to be found; in the Body of the County all recognized Sub-divisions of the Hundred are distinguished, each with its separate Total.
'So far the arrangement of the ensuing volume differs little from that of 1801, nor indeed from the several Poor Returns of 1776, 1786, and 1803; nor ought it to differ from established precedent, without good reason for so doing. But the very repetition of such inquiries has been found to render it absolutely necessary to enter more minutely into the relative connexion and identity of places than before. This necessity will best be understood by stating, that there are in England and Wales about 550 Parishes which are known to extend into Two Counties, or into more than One hundred or other Jurisdiction; and that every one of these places creates a danger of duplicate entry. No person entrusted with the care of perfecting the Population Returns, can fail to refer to all preceding authorities; nor, doing so, can fail to apply for Returns to Parish Officers, who apparently, but not really, have made a default: nor can any effort of memory prevent this; the orthography of the names of places being too little settled, and indeed many names identically the same occuring too often. to permit any certain recognition of the same place. The best method of avoiding these difficulties appeared to lie in a more careful attention to the parochial connexion of places; besides that for many purposes, particularly ecclesiastical, the knowledge of the Population of a Parish is, at least, as useful as that of its constituent parts. The instruction, prefixed to the questions of the printed Schedule, was intended to produce information of this kind, which indeed had before been asked with some effect, as appears in the Poor Return Abstract of 1803; with the help of which, and of the present Returns, it was hoped that a successful attempt might be made, to ascertain the parochial connexion of all places in Great Britain; so that no Parish should be named in the Enumeration Abstract, without a reference to all its constituent parts; and that no such part should be named without a reference to its Parish; and this whether the whole Parish be in the same County and Hundred, or otherwise.
'In this attempt some difficulty has occurred, which renders it necessary to enter into a brief Statement respecting the Parochial Division of the Kingdom; which may be deemed Ecclesiastical rather than Civil.
'The Country Parishes in England (in the modern sense of the word Parish) seem originally to have been the same extent and limits as the several Manors; nor could it well be otherswise, because, when it became settled, during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, that Tithe was generally due to the Church, every Lord of an independent Manor would of course appoint a Clergyman of his own chusing, or make a donation of his Tithes to some religious community. Hence the Parochial Division of England appears to have been nearly the same as now established, in the Taxatio Ecclesiatica, which was compiled in the reign of King Edward the First. (A.D. 1288-1292.)
'In the Towns indeed there is considerable variation, personal tithes having been much more productive before the Reformation of Religion than afterwards, and consequently a greater number of Clergymen maintained in populous places. Thus the City of London (within and without the Walls, but not including the Borough of Southwark), which now reckons 108 Parishes, forming no more than 72 Ecclesiastical Benefices, had at that time 140; Norwich, in like manner, is reduced from 70 Parishes to 37, and other antient Cities in proportion: a sufficient indication that the number of Parishes in Towns was formerly suffered to increase in proportion to the population: and, besides that personal Tythes and Dues must always have been in a great degree voluntary, it appears from the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, that the profits accruing from one and the same Parish were not confined to one Spiritual Person, nor even to one Religious House or Community. Under such circumstances, it is not likely that Town-Parishes were antiently limited, either in number or extent; but the conflicting rights of Tithe-owners, and the perambulations ordained by the Canon Law, must have
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