button to main menu  Gents Mag 1812 part 2 p.234
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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.'
* '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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