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AUTHOR: FAWCETT, CHARLES TITLE: PROVINCES OF ENGLAND PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1919 COLUMl^lA UNIVERSIPi' LlilRARIES PRI'SH R V ATION DEPA Rl'M ENT Master Negative # B I B L I O G R A PIIICMIC R O FORM TAR G liT Restriction? on Use: Original Ma!>>rial as Fiimed - Existing Bibliographic Record 942 F28 'I'iiill'liHill AA 9185 F28 Pawcett, Charles Bungay. 1 8 8 3 • ... Provinces of England; a study of some geographical aspects of devohition, by C. B. Fawcett ... London, Wil- liams and Norgatc, 1919. 2 p. l, iv. 7-296 p. front, illus. (maps) 19^". (The making of the future) Another copy in Avery. 1919. 1. Administrative and political divisions, g^. mcnt— Gt. Brit. 3. Gt Brit.— Descr. & trav.yf i; tion, A .study of some geographical aspects of. Library of Congress I ) JN297.F4F3 rit. 2. If^cal govern- itle. II. 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By the Editors. 616 net. IDEAS AT WAR. By Prof. Geddes and Dr. Gilbert Slater. 6/- net. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY IN WESTERN EUROPE. By Prof. H. J. Fleure. 6/- net. OUR SOCIAL INHERITANCE. By the Editors. 6/- net. PROVINCES OF ENGLAND: A Study OF Some Geographical Aspects of Devolution. By C. B. Fawcett. 6/6 net. Other Volumes in Preparation, GENERAL WORKS BY THE EDITORS. INTERPRETATIONS AND FORECASTS : A Study of Survivals and Tendencies in Con- temporary Society. By Victor Branford. (Duckworth & Co., 7/6.) CITIES IN EVOLUTION: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics. By Prof. Geddes. Fully illustrated. (Williams & Norgate, 7/6 net.) BY C. B. FAWCETT. FRONTIERS : A Study in Political Geography. Oxford University Press. 1 he Making of the Future Showing the Suggested Provinces in Relation to the Relief of the Land. Fronii^ece, I PROVINCES OF ENGLAND A STUDY OF SOME GEOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS OF DEVOLUTION BY C. B. FAWCETT B.LiTT., Oxford ; M.Sc, London LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 2 I9I9 f "-I EDITORS' INTRODUCTION The industry and the politics of the nineteenth century progressed alike through extension and unification. Larger industries, further-reaching and swifter trans- ports, wider markets, became naturally also associated over greater areas, and these into larger unities of administration and government. Railways and tele^ graphs, steamer-routes and cables at once enlarged industrial towns to world-markets, and aggrandized their metropolitan cities into imperial capitals. Prac^ ileal life and political endeavour were thus at one / hence the expansion of England, the centralization of France, the American War of Union, the unification of Germany, and even of Italy, are now seen as kindred processes. Exceptions to these processes, even dissents from them, were noticeable. But these were simply explained, in terms of limitation, or backwardness ; e.g. geo- graphical for Switzerland, linguistic for Hungary, sentimental for Alsace and Lorraine, legendary for Ireland, and so on ; and thus as so many survivals, destined to disappear with progress or education, or at worst as petty self-assertions, to be repressed with such firmness as need be. The sun of Progress shone essentially from the ever-growing capitals over their extending empires, and illuminated the unification of their nationalities, under due predominance of their metropolitan types. 11 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Yet, despite Vienna and Austria, Hungary achieved her equality in empire ; and thus diffused a more European influence and example than she knew. The separation of Norway from Sweden was a more peaceful case of this process, albeit a more extreme one : and now, after the war, we sec not only the conservation of the small nations, but the rise of new ones — witness the complete break-up of Austria into its units, the reunion of Poland, the disintegration of '* all the Russias," and the growing detachment of German States from Berlin and Prussia. The decentralization of ** all the Spains " from Madrid is also under active discussion ; and, most significant of all, it is from France, though the earliest and most fully centralized of countries, and most unanimous of all throughout the war, that we have longest been receiving alike the best descriptions of her component regions and the most definite projects of legislation towards their re- newal, " Regionalism " was, indeed, first a French word : and this not merely in geography, but also in politics, and long before the war. From Brittany to Provence its studies and its policy have long been preparing ; and now still more definitely with the return of Alsace and Lorraine. The United Provinces of France are thus in the remaking. For most of the older generation, whether industrial and liberal, or of imperialist and financial outlooks, this newer movement has seemed reactionary or per- verse, and of course not always without cause. Yet as students of social life and its processes we are learning to recognize that every society is a complex web, with its relatively fixed geographical and historic conditions, its regional warp, as the very basis of its fluent economic and political woof. Economics is thus EDITORS' INTRODUCTION 111 fundamentally regional, since sources of food, materials, and power, conditions of transport and more, are of Nature s making, which we utilize more than we modify. Hence, since politics cannot but follow economic lines, it has to become inter-regional as well ; not simply super- regional — i.e, uni-regional, if not positively irregional — as metropolitan bureaucracies are increasingly felt by their external provinces to be. So far as the war settlement and the League of Nations are recognizing these conditions and dual requirements, the regional and the general, their work may thus be effective, and become stable ; or conversely. Hence this new movement, towards regionalism, and all over Europe, despite the impatiences, or even excesses, with which it may be chargeable, is by no means the mere mental disorder or material revolt so alarming to the metropolitan view-point ; since its inmost purpose is not the disruption of larger ties, so far as vital ones, but the legitimate development of the local life ; which has been at best but insufficiently fostered, if not positively repressed, from distant centres sub- stantially unacquainted with it. As the first claims of this regional life are granted, inter-regionalism cannot but be advanced anew : hence the most dis- cerning, and therefore most intensive, regionalists of to-day are also among the most appreciative of truly comprehensive politics, as of the League of Nations. Though the embers and sparks which actually kindled the war were largely from among the Balkan peoples^ in their long ill-centralized and still unadjusted regions, it is the well-adjusted cantons of Switzerland, with their different races, languages, and religions, their varied yet mutualized sympathies and interests accord- ingly, and the United Provinces of Holland and of IV PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Belgium, the Scandinavian peoples, and of course the United States, which are leading the Great Powers into- that League of which they have each so long been samples and examples, in their various ways. So indeed it is for the British Empire, for which the crude separatism of one generation, and the crude centralization attempted by the next, have in ours been reconciled through wise and large measures of devolu- tion ; and with increasing moral solidarity accordingly , as the war has so vividly shown. Why not then the like in our ow7t islands ? Ireland's predominant demand is not their only difficulty, nor yet Ulster's more exasperated regionalism. Wales, for matters of church, education, etc., Scotland too for her own concerns, and also North England, the Midlands, and more, are all claiming more understanding, and affirm- ing more urgency, for their own affairs, than an over- worked central government can give them.^ Hence then the need of regional geography ; and for this survey, this necessary description and diagnosis before treatment, England offers one of the best of fields, the more since undivided in language or senti- ment. We are fortunate, therefore, in finding a geographer who has begun with this problem — quite independently of our above-indicated general sympathies and special interests — and so leave him to open his discussion and to arouse his critics. P. G. V. B. » See also in this connection J. P. Day, *' Public Administration in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," University Press, London, 191 9. For civic regionalism in Britain, Geddes, " Evolution of Cilies," London, 1914. PREFACE This book may be regarded as an essay in the application of Geography to a particular political problem, that of the deUmitation of Provinces of England. The suggestion for a division of England into a number of provinces, each of which should be comparable in resources and popu- lation to the other countries of the British Isles, was first brought to my notice some ten years ago by a reference to '* Home Rule all Round " in reports of a speech delivered by a prominent politician. Except for a vague mention of Yorkshire and Lancashire, that speech gave no indication of what provinces, if any, the speaker had in mind. At intervals during these ten years I have made many attempts at marking out such provinces. The results of some of these were summarized in a paper on *' Natural Divisions of England,'' which I read at an Afternoon Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on November 9, 1916. This paper, with a summary of the discussion on it, was published in the Geographical Journal for February 1917, 8 PREFACE vol. xhx, pp. 125 -141. The present volume may be regarded as in some respects an ampli- fication and revision of that paper, though the provinces here sketched out differ in some important points from the divisions indicated there. It owes much to the suggestions and criticisms made in the course of the discussion. The paper was again discussed at a meeting of the Regional Association held at Newbury in the Easter Vacation of 1917, and from that discussion also I obtained some valuable suggestions. The book may be divided into three fairly distinct sections. The first five chapters are devoted to a study and criticism of the existing political divisions of England, and a state- ment and discussion of the principles on which the delimitation of the provinces here suggested IS based. Each of the next twelve chapters (VI to XVII) is devoted to one of these pro- vinces and gives a brief account of its extent and boundaries and of the factors which make it, more or less distinctly, a unit area. The remainder (Chapters XVIII to XXII) deals with more general considerations, some of which could not be conveniently discussed until after the limits of the provinces had been indicated. Some detailed figures as to the areas and populations of the provinces, and suggested railway connections, are given in Appendixes. This plan has involved some PREFACE 9 repetition ; though that has been avoided as far as possible. The order of treatment of the several provinces was determined chiefly by convenience : the more distinct natural units, i.e. those which are most clearly marked off by natural features and population distri- butions, have been considered first and the less definite ones later. The first one dealt with, '* North England," is discussed at greater length than any of the others ; mainly because it is taken first, and therefore several matters discussed in reference to it need not be dealt with again — partly, perhaps, because the writer is himself a Northcountryman. The boundaries between the several pro- vinces have been described in some detail in order to make the w^ork definite. These descriptions have been based on the sheets of the Two Miles to One Inch Ordnance Survey Map of England and Wales, layer edition ; and the detail can only be followed on maps of the same, or a larger, scale. Much of this detail will be of direct interest only to those who are already interested in the locality concerned or who wish to follow the boundaries suggested. The small-scale diagrams here given can only show the general trend of the boundaries. For the location and spelling of the place-names used the map quoted above has been the authority. Where St boundary is described as between two places, lO PREFACE the one first named is inside, and the other outside, the province under discussion. It is probably unnecessary to state that any detailed demarkation will be a matter for duly authorized Commissioners when a divi- sion into provinces is made. This delimitation gives twelve Provinces of England ; but the precise number is purely accidental. I did not aim at dividing the country into ten or twelve, or any particular number of provinces. The actual delimita- tion reached is a result of applying the prin- ciples stated in Chapter IV to the existing geographical conditions. Similarly there has been no attempt to obtain equality among the different provinces in any respect ; and no boundary lines have been adjusted in order to add to, or subtract from, the population or area of any province. The chief sources of information used in preparing this book have been the maps of the Ordnance Survey and the Reports on the Censuses of England and Wales, especially those on the last census, that of 191 1. I have obtained additional information on many de- tails from Dr. Bartholomew's Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles. The figures for countries other than England and Wales which are used in some comparisons are taken from the Statesman's Year Book, edition of 1918. I have also been indebted in many ways PREFACE 1 1 to Mr. Mackinder's masterly work on Britain and the British Seas.^ Finally, I wish to acknowledge here my great indebtedness to the many people who have, in various places and circumstances, given me personal information about local conditions and popular sympathies in different parts of the country, especially in areas near to these suggested boundaries. Their answers to the many questions I have put, often to strangers in a railway carriage or at casual meetings of many kinds, have always been courteous and very often helpful But in no case has any specific statement been made on such an authority unless I have been able to confirm it otherwise. I also wish to express my thanks to Colonel Sir Charles F. Close, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, for permission to consult maps and books in the Library of the Ord- nance Survey Office, facihties without which the preparation of this work would have been very much more arduous than it has actually ^"""- C. B. F. I Since this book was written I have had the pleasure of reading Mr. Mackinder's Democratic Ideals and ^^««/:V' Constable, London, 1919, the seventh chapter of which contains some discussion of a possible federahzation ol the United Kingdom. He has there suggested the prob- lem which is here formulated, and of which this book- offers a tentative solution. CONTENTS n PREFACE . . . . CHAPTER . I. INTRODUCTORY . II. EXISTING LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OVER THE LAND . IV. PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 'v. THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS VI. PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND VII. PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE VIII. PROVINCE OF PEAKDON . IX. PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE X. THE SEVERN PROVINCE XI, THE TRENT PROVINCE XII. PROVINCE OF DEVON XIII. PROVINCE OF WESSEX XIV. THE BRISTOL PROVINCE XV. PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA X\'I. THE LONDON PROVINCE . 13 PAGE 7 17 •' 30 50 69 85 140 148 160 167 172 186 194 204 14 CONTENTS CHAPTXR XVII. CENTRAL ENGLAND XVIII. THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY . XIX. -XX. 4 XXI. J UNITY OF THE PROVINCES THE PROVINCES AS EDUCATIONAL AREAS PAGE . 216 RELATION OF THE PROVINCES TO OTHER PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS , . . 244 XXII. CONCLUSION ..... 258 APPENDIX I. POPULATION AND AREA OF EACH PROVINCE : 265 (a) TABLE OF THE AREAS AND POPU- LATIONS OF THE PROVINCES . 267 (b) TABLES SHOWING THE POPULATION OF EACH PROVINCE AS OBTAINED FROM THE COUNTIES . . 268 (c) TABLES SHOWING THE POPULATIONS OF THE COUNTIES AS ALLOTTED TO THE PROVINCES . . . 2^2 APPBNDIX II. TABLE OF CONNECTING RAILWAY LINES SUGGESTED .... 276 APPENDIX III. ON THE NATIONAL WATER SUPPLY — AREAS AND CONNECTIONS ACROSS PROVINCIAL BOUNDARIES .... 279 INJDEX . 283 LIST OF DIAGRAMS Map showing the suggested provinces in relation to the reUef of the land . . . Frontispiece FIG. PAGE 1. Principal Administrative Divisions of the Ministries of National Service, Labour and Munitions (September 1918) . - . . . .36 2. The Administrative and Registration Counties of Leicester in 1901, showing the differences in their boundaries . . . .42 3. Intricacy of some County Boundaries . . 45 4. ''Open" Spaces in Primitive England . 51 5. Distribution of Population before the Industrial Revolution (for England only) . . • 5^ 6. Distribution of Population in 1911 . . 57 7. The Ancient Counties of South England as based on " Open " Areas . . . . .62 8. The Ancient Counties of the Midlands as orga- nized round Valley Towns . . -63 9. Distribution of monoglot English in Wales and Monmouthshire . . . . .219 15 i6 PIG. LIST OF DIAGRAMS PAG I 10. Chief Lilies of Railway in Relation to the Provinces and their Capitals . . . 228 11. Distribution of Universities in Relation to the Provinces . . . . .242 12. Relations of the Provinces to the Counties . 248 13. Comparative diagrams of areas, populations, and densities of population of the provinces . 266 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Many suggestions for the devolution of some of the powers and duties of the ParUament of the United Kingdom to subordinate parlia- ments have been made in recent years. The steady demand for Home Rule for Ireland, and the extent to which that country has a separate administration for its local govern- ment, have kept this topic in the forefront of pubhc hfe. Scotland also has in many respects a different legal and administrative system from that of England. As yet there is no such separate administration for Wales in the British Government ; and the educa- tional and registration systems of that country, and its local government in general, unlike those of Scotland and Ireland, are controlled from London along with those of England. But there is now a strong tendency towards the development of a Welsh administration, 'H I i8 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND especially in educational matters ; and the co-operation of Welsh local authorities, to- gether with a revival of Welsh nationalism and the study of the Welsh language, has paved the way for a Welsh demand for Home Rule, akin to that which has long been demanded by Irish Nationalists. This demand has become articulate within the last two years. A similar tendency is traceable in Scotland. The satisfaction of these several demands for " Home Rule All Round " would obviously involve the transformation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from a unified to a federal state. If such a change was made merely by setting up four separate national parliaments — for England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales respectively — it would lead to many difficulties in working inherent in the fact that one of the four constituent countries would have more than three-fourths of the total population and wealth of the union. ^ Under these conditions, the Parlia- ment of England would inevitably be so I Populations in 191 1, from the Statesman's Year Book : — INTRODUCTORY 19 United Kingdom England . . Scotland . . Ireland . . Wales 45,370,530 34,045,290 4,760,904 4,390,219 \ 11,176,325 2,025,202 powerful in the union as to be co-ordinate with, rather than subordinate to, the British ParUament. The EngUsh and British parUa- ments would both sit in London, and there would probably be some rivalry between them and a strong tendency for the former to dominate the federation. If Ireland had " Dominion " Home Rule apart from the divisions of the larger island, the predomin- ance of England in Great Britain would be still greater. A corresponding state of affairs existed from 1871 to 1918 in the German Federal Empire, where the Prussian and the Imperial German Parliaments met in Berlin. Prussia had a little less than two-thirds of the population,^ and so was less overwhelm- ingly dominant in the German Empire than England is in the United Kingdom, but none the less Prussia so effectively dominated the whole Empire that the other states had very little influence on its government and policy. And Prussian dominance was not materially lessened by the fact that many of the leading statesmen and thinkers of the Empire were natives of the minor states. In a federal state in which no one of the partners is dominant, as in Canada, Austraha and the United States of America, the smaller states have relatively much greater influence on » Census of 1910 : German Empire, 64,925,993 ; Prussia, 40,165,219. 4 If !1 20 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND the federal government and its policies. The advantage to the smaller constituents clearly lies m not having a too predominant partner • and It IS arguable that this is also much better for the federal state as a whole and all its citizens. The powers and duties of the British Parha- ment in the last two or three generations ^ nave fallen into three chief classes :— I. Those concerned with the British Commonwealth as a whole, or with the relations between different constituents of that Commonwealth, such as the con- duct of foreign affairs and of defence, and the control of those parts which have not self-government. These may be spoken of as its ^'imperiar' functions; and It IS obvious that they should be discharged by a body representative of and responsible to, at least all the self- governing States of the Commonwealth. 2. Those concerned with the British Isles, including such matters as the ad- ministration of justice, the control of communications, and most of the legis- lation referring to education and to social, industrial, and commercial hfe. These are obviously the true functions of a par- hament for the British Isles. 3. Those concerned essentially with INTRODUCTORY 21 local government, such as legislation for tramways, gas and electric light under- - takings, and the supervision of local governing bodies in their administrative work. This should be the work of pro- vincial parliaments. This classification is necessarily a very rough one, and this is not the place in which to discuss it at any length. Hence we will only note here that in very many cases it may be difficult to place a particular Act of Parliament into one class only. In the British Commonwealth as a whole there are already three ranks of parUaments, whose powers and functions correspond in some degree to those of the classes just set out, in spite of a high degree of confusion and overlapping. In the first rank is the British ParHament, in so far as it is the Parlia- ment of the whole. In the second rank come the Parliaments of the Dominion of Canada and of the Commonwealth of Aus- traUa. And in the third rank are those of the several provinces of Canada and the several states pf AustraUa. The ParUaments of the unified self-governing dominions of New Zealand and Newfoundland combine the functions of the second and third ranks. Yet all those we have just mentioned as primarily exercising functions of the second m 22 1. PROVINCES OF ENGLAND rank have some functions, such as the control of defence, tariff legislation and coinage, which would place them in the first rank All proposals for parliamentary devolution m the British Isles rest on one or both of two mam grounds : first, the demand of the people of some parts of the United Kingdom tor local autonomy; and second, the fact that the present British Parhament is, and has long been, so overburdened by its manifold duties that its business is hopelessly con- gested and many of its Acts receive very msufficient consideration. The tasks of govermng the British Empire and the British isles and of providing and controlling the machmery of local government for forty-five millions of people have jointly proved too great for the time and energy of one parha- ment. It has often been overburdened with a niass of parochial detail," • a mass which might also overburden a parliament of England And the devolution proposals all agree in planning to estaWish several parhaments of what we have here called the third rank " to provide for and control local government within their areas. The considerations so far mentioned point to the conclusion that what is now required IS 3 division of England into a group of pro- vinces. .or„ niajor local government areas. » Times leader of April 25, 1918. INTRODUCTORY 23 '•1 These should be comparable to the other divisions of the United Kingdom— Scotland, Ireland and Wales— in resources and popu- lation, and should have self-government of the same order as that of these divisions or of a province of Canada. If any such division of England is to be satisfactory, it must be based primarily on geographical considera- tions. Many other series of considerations are necessarily involved— historical, adminis- trative, financial, and so on— but the basis of any such division into provinces must be the geography of the country. The results of the division of Revolution France into a series of purely artificial departments, designed to secure as much uniformity as possible, irrespective of any natural geographical relationships, and the modern revolt against that division in the regionaHst movement in that country, offer a warning that should not go unheeded. Any attempt to secure an artificial uniformity of area or population in our provinces would inevitably give rise to corresponding evils. And the weakness of a division based entirely on party interests has also been shown by the rapid and com- plete disappearance of Cromwell's divisions of England. A strong local patriotism is essen- tial to good provincial government under democratic conditions ; and this can only be developed if the provinces are closely H PROVINCES OF ENGLAND related Jo natural divisions of the country Hence the question to which this book attempts r*Vr! ^ ^^"^^i':^ ^"^^^'^ ™ay be stated as L^ What are the Major Natural Political Divi- . sions of England ? "y The question will here be discussed in its geographical aspects only. This book is only madentally concerned with any other aspect of the problems of division and devolution bmce we are considering divisions of one state for the sake of greater efficiency in its local government, it is clear that no strategic problems can arise in connection with any ot the boundaries which may be suggested. Also any such province can only have those powers and duties which the British Pariia- ment delegates to it ; and there is no necessary reason why each provincial parliament should have precisely the same functions. The pro-| blem IS one of devolution, not of federation ' It IS comparable to the estabhshment of the prairie provinces of Canada rather than to the formation of the Australian Common- wealth. In many respects the distinctive nationality of Scots and Welshmen might be held to justify the delegation to their parliaments of some powers which were not desired by East Anglians or Lancashiremen • even though the differences between East Angha and Lancashire are in some ways - greater than those between Wales and Scot- INTRODUCTORY 25 land. The position of our suggested Province of Devon in reference to the railway system is so different from that of the Midland Pro- vinces that its influence on that system within its bounds would probably be very different. But the railways, as a principal means of communication, are essentially a matter for the federal government. Free and abundant interchange of ideas and goods, and frequent direct intercourse of persons, among all its parts are among the most powerful factors making for the unity of any state or nation. Hence it is a prime duty of the government which represents the whole to facilitate such intercourse as much as possible. This implies that the federal , government should control posts and tele- j graphs, railways, roads and waterways, and jj any other means of communication, either 1 directly or indirectly, and employ its powers I to facilitate all communications. Our discussion of this problem of division into provinces is here limited to England. Scotland and Ireland are not considered, and Wales is referred to only in so far as the principles applied to the delimitation of our suggested English provinces would affect the Anglo-Welsh boundary. The essential assumption which underlies all the criticism and suggestion with regard to the areas and boundaries of our local t ■HiNkalMMMM 34 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND related_to_ natural divisions of the country. Hence the question to which this book attempts r}°^xfJ^ ^ tentative answer may be stated as U What are the Major Natural Political Divi- . sions of England ? " The question will here be discussed in its geographical aspects only. This book is only mcidentally concerned with any other aspect of the problems of division and devolution. Smce we are considering divisions of one state for the sake of greater efficiency in its local government, it is clear that no strategic problems can arise in connection with any of the boundaries which may be suggested. Also any such province can only have those powers and duties which the British Pariia- ment delegates to it ; and there is no necessary reason why each provincial parliament should have precisely the same functions. The pro-} blem is one of devolution, not of federation ' It IS comparable to the estabhshment of the prairie provinces of Canada rather than to the formation of the Austrahan Common- wealth. In many respects the distinctive nationality of Scots and Welshmen might be held to justify the delegation to their parhaments of some powers which were not desired by East Anglians or Lancashiremen ; even though the differences between East Anglia and Lancashire are in some ways greater than those between Wales and Scot- INTRODUCTORY 25 land. The position of our suggested Province of Devon in reference to the railway system is so different from that of the Midland Pro- vinces that its influence on that system within its bounds would probably be very different. But the railways, as a principal means of communication, are essentially a matter for the federal government. Free and abundant interchange of ideas and goods, and frequent direct intercourse of persons, among all its parts are among the most powerful factors making for the unity of any state or nation. Hence it is a prime duty of the government which represents the whole to facilitate such intercourse as much as possible. This implies that the federal v government should control posts and tele- ;.. graphs, railways, roads and waterways, and ' ! any other means of communication, either J directly or indirectly, and employ its powers I to facilitate all communications. Our discussion of this problem of division into provinces is here limited to England. Scotland and Ireland are not considered, and Wales is referred to only in so far as the principles applied to the delimitation of our suggested English provinces would affect the Anglo-Welsh boundary. The essential assumption which underlies all the criticism and suggestion with regard to the areas and boundaries of our local it 26 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND government divisions in this volume is that such divisions exist only in order to facilitate good government. In a country which is occupied by a united nation and is governed on democratic principles, that assumption is fundamental for all its internal divisions. Boundaries between separate sovereign states have often been drawn with reference to the strategic and tactical considerations of one party, to the control of important military and economic roadways, access to seaports or mming areas, and so on. No such consider- ..ations can enter into a discussion of these 'suggested Provinces of England. The division must also be affected by the nature and extent of the powers and duties to be allotted to the provincial parhaments. Here the dominant fact is that these parlia- ments can have only such powers as may ■•.be conferred on them by the British Parhai ment, and no others. The British Parhament IS supreme in these islands, and it can confer, or withhold, or withdraw, any such powers at Its own discretion. And it is evidently not essential that each provincial parhament should possess exactly the same powers. There is no more reason to require absolute uniformity in this respect than in relation to area or population. It is quite sufficient that the several provinces should be fairly comparable to each other. INTRODUCTORY 27 The precedent set by the many PubHc Acts which have already been based on Private Acts obtained by a progressive local authority will probably be of great value in actually determining the powers and func- tions of provincial parhaments ; since a pro- vincial parhament could at any time ask the British Parhament to confer on it any ad- ditional powers which it desired. In England the first suggestion is that the functions of the provincial parhaments would be primarily J^ administrative rather than legislative ; though they would necessarily have much more power of initiative than *any present local authorities. They should at once take over all the '' county '' powers of local government, i.e. they would directly supersede and absorb the county councils. In most cases they would probably consist very largely of the persons who were formerly members of the councils of counties and cities : the first parhament in each province might well be to some extent an amalgamation of some few county and city councils. This control of '' county '' powers should also extend over the county boroughs in each province. In this way the establishment of the provinces would do something to reverse the disastrous separation of town and country in local government which has grown up in this country, a separation which was largely due 38 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND in the first instance to the different relations of the boroughs and manors to the feudal lords. All the lesser local authorities in each province, such as the councils of towns of urban and rural districts, and of parishes should derive their authority from, and be directly subordinated to and under the control of, the provincial parliament, since that body IS to be fully responsible for all local administration within its area. Indeed, the* numbers and powers of these subordinate councils is a matter which should be left entirely to the provincial parliament; since the conditions affecting these matters differ considerably in the different provinces. In many departments of local government especially in regard to its provision for the future, we have been compelled to realize of late that the areas and powers allotted to many local authorities in this country are inadequate to the efficient performance of the duties laid on them. Hence many of them have been compelled to obtain special authority from Parliament by Private Acts and go outside their own areas in making provision for the health of their people by sanatoria and cottage homes, for the supply of water or the disposal of sewage, the regula- tion of flooded streams, and so on. We have covered the land with a needlessly large number of small, and therefore relatively INTRODUCTORY 29 costly and inefficient, electric generating stations and gasworks. And our planning for the betterment of our towns and villages and the improved housing and other accommo- dation of our people is hampered on every hand by obsolesc£nt-k>raJ boundaries. Our local government garb is inherited from the days of the small self-contained borough, jealous of its independence of the feudal lord, and the isolated village, which was under his- control. It has been strained and torn in innumerable places by the growth and shifting of our population and the changes in our modes of Ufe and association. And to meet these difficulties it has been darned and patched at frequent intervals, without any system or regularity. The problem of adjusting the local government divisions to the needs of the people has never been viewed as a whole ; but until it is so considered there can be no hope of any real solution of it. CHAPTER II EXISTING LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS Probably few people, other than those who have given some time to the special study of the matter, have any realization of the extreme complexity of the areas into which England is now divided for the purposes of its local government, the administration of justice, parliamentary representation, regis- tration of births, deaths and marriages, poor law administration, and inspection of various kinds. A summary table of these areas is given below. This is based on the General Report on the Census of /p//, pp. 26 and 28. The numbers of the areas of each class at the date of the census of 191 1 are here given for England alone, except for the judicial divisions, some of which overlap the Anglo-Welsh boundary. These have been obtained from other parts of the Census Report. These divisions are of three orders of impor- tance, which are indicated in the table by the letters a, 6 and c ; the a divisions being directly related to the central government. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS 31 h to the a divisions, and c to either a or b. or both. 50 72 h- A. Local Government Areas (England). County Areas — (Administrative Counties .. ^(County Boroughs Administrative Counties are subdivided into — TT u rk- + • + I Metropolitan Boroughs 28 Urban Districts, 1 Municipal Boroughs . . 225^1 ,001 including | q^^^^. ^^^^^ Districts 748 , Rural Districts . . . . . . • . . . 59^ Urban Districts arc sometimes subdivided into — c Wards, and also in some cases into c Civil Parishes (generally an urban district forms but one civil parish, but sometimes it contains many). Rural Districts are subdivided into — c Civil Parishes. County boroughs are subdivided into — c Wards, and also in some cases into — c Civil Parishes. The total number of Civil Parishes is 13,493. and these include 875 detached parts of certain parishes. The total number of Wards of Urban Districts. _- including County Boroughs, is 3,104. B. Judicial Areas (England and Wales). f Petty Sessional Divisions 744 ^ ( County Court Circuits 53 32 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND County Court Circuits are subdivided into— b County Court Districts C. Poor Law Areas. a Poor Law Unions . . These are subdivided into — c Civil Parishes. 495 596 10 43 587 D. Registration Areas. a Registration Divisions. . a Registration Counties h Registration Districts These are identical with the Poor Law Unions or parishes of the same name, except that the nine Registration Districts of Chester, Dorchester, Fulham, Hatfield, Helmsley, Hereford, Royston (Herts), Winchester, and Wolverhampton each include two Poor Law Unions. c Registration Subdistricts. These are formed by aggregations of Civil Parishes. » E. Parliamentary Constituencies. These are ad hoc divisions with no necessary relation to any of those already mentioned. Before 1918 they were based on the Ancient Counties. They are now based on the Administrative Divisions, counties and » This statement is given in the General Report of the Census of igii, p. 26. It is true of rural areas, but not for those large urban districts (such as Bristol C.B., 357>04S inhabitants; East Ham M.B., 133,487; and Willesden U.D., 154,214), each of which constitutes only one Civil Parish. On p. v of vol. ii is the statement that Registration Subdistricts consist of one or more civil parishes or parts of parishes. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS 33 urban and rural districts ; but no less than 78 of the 622 Rural Districts are divided for parliamentary purposes. Besides these there are several other classes of areas for various purposes, whose bound- aries may or may not have any relation to some of those just referred to. Some of these are : — Ecclesiastical Areas. High Court Circuits. Coroner's Court Districts. Joint Districts for Sanitary Purposes. Burial Board Districts. Port Sanitary Authorities' Areas. Local Education Authorities' Areas. County Council Electoral Divisions. Relief Districts. Polling Districts. There are also areas defined by Local Acts for the supply of gas, water and electricity, and for drainage purposes ; areas defined for special purposes by government depart- ments, as, for example, postal districts, inland revenue districts and customs ports ; and such purely local areas as the Metropolitan Police Court District, as well as areas which for certain purposes are under the control of such bodies as Docks and Harbour Boards, River Conservators, Fishery Boards and kindred bodies. In most cases the areas and boundaries of 34 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND these different divisions are quite independent. There is, for instance, no necessary relation between a Poor Law Union and an Urban or Rural District, though each consists usually of an aggregation of civil parishes or of one such parish. Still less is there any neces- sary^ or regular relation between any local government divisions and judicial areas of any kind. During the war many divisions of the country were set up under various provisions of the Defence of the Realm Act. Not all of these are known to the general public ; but particulars of some have appeared in the Press, as, for instance, those of the areas j of the Food Commissioners, the National |; Service Divisions, Coal Control, Cattle Com- ^ missioners and some others. The major divisions under these heads are on a scale larger than that of the counties, which are at present the largest local government areas, and akin to that of our suggested provinces. Most of these divisions appear to be based on local government areas ; but they continue the tradition of existing divisions in that each series is quite independent of all the others ; and there is no indication that they have been delimited on any common principle. D.O.R.A.'s atlas, if it is ever published, will show a maze of divisions similar to those tabulated a few pages back (pp. 31-3). LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS 35 According to announcements in the daily papers on September 2, 1918, the three Ministries of National Service, Labour, and Munitions agreed upon, and issued particulars of, a uniform grouping of areas for their pur- poses. The divisions thus set up are shown in Fig. I (p. 36). This scheme divides England into seven principal administrative divisions, adds Monmouthshire to Wales to make an eighth, and regards Scotland as one distinct division. In only three instances does it depart from a mere grouping of counties. These departures are in the allocation of the Cleveland District to the Northern Division, and the Glossop and New Mills Districts of Derbyshire to the North- w^estern Division, and in keeping the w^hole of the MetropoHtan Police Area in the London and South-eastern Division. In each of these departures from county boundaries it tends towards agree- ment with the considerations which are set out in this book, and here apphed all over the country. Three of these principal adminis- trative divisions coincide, as nearly as is possible in view of the fact that their hmits are county boundaries, with three of our pro- vinces. These are the Northern Division with our North England, the North-western Division with our Lancashire Province, and the West Midland Division with our Severn Province. The latter division, which consists of the five t I \ / ^"^.^^O •L-j ^SOUTH WtST t R N r*^^"^MEAStERNf \ \ \ ■r 348 Civil Parishes vanished by absorp- tion in others, 70 new ones were created, and 332 more suffered changes of area; 29 urban districts vanished by being either dissolved or merged in others, and 44 new ones were created; in all, 112 urban districts underwent changes in their boundaries. The boundaries of 17 Administrative Counties ^ and of 8 Registration Counties were altered ; and, of course, the many changes in the bound- aries of urban districts involved correspond- ing changes in those of rural districts. These changes in the boundaries of local government ' Thirteen of these were reduced in area; p. 32 of the General Report, Census of iqii. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIVISIONS 49 areas were so widespread that in this period (1901-1911) only three Administrative Counties, Nottingham, Rutland and West Suffolk, were not affected. The list of these changes which forms Table 13 in vol. i of the Report on the Census of igi i occupies no less than seventeen foolscap pages (459-475 inclusive). Evidently there is nothing sacrosanct in the boundaries of the administrative subdivisions of England ; hence there is no reason for a refusal to consider any serious plan for their reorganization. The great number of these changes points to a very general dissatisfaction with the existing local government divisions. The chief reason for the undoubted fact that our existing divisions are so unsatisfactory is that they are not related in any systematic or rational manner to the distribution of the people or to the natural features of the country. In this volume we propose to discuss only the major divisions ; but most of the state- ments are true, in so far as they are relevant, for the minor divisions also. CHAPTER III THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OVER THE LAND The present distribution of population in England has been taken as a principal guiding fact in the arrangement of these provinces. Hence it is well to try to consider how the distribution of the people has varied during the growth of the nation and state, and how far it is likely to be permanent in its main features. During the historic period there have been two great series of changes in the distribution of the people over the land surface in this country. The first of these is the " valley- ward migration '' from the upland areas : the second is the modern concentration of huge masses of people on the coalfields and the industrial areas and in big towns since the Industrial Revolution. The valley-ward movement has been going on for some two or three thousand years. Before man acquired metal tools it was im- possible for him to clear away a forest, a fact which will be readily grasped by any 50 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 51 one who has tried to cut through a stick with a flint knife. Hence primitive man in England was a dweller on those open areas H. Fig. 4.--" Open" Spaces in Primitive England. By Professor H. J. Fleure. From *• Man," by permission of the author and the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute. on which trees could not grow densely-; and he rarely entered the tree-clad valleys and 52 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND lowlands except as a hunter or traveller. The open areas were chiefly to be found on the chalk uplands of the south and east, from Dorset to the Yorkshire Wolds, and on the Pennine, Cumbrian and South-western highlands. On these highlands there were large areas of open wind-swept moorland above the limits of dense forest growth ; and though the highest parts were too bleak and barren for regular settlement, there were on them considerable stretches of habitable open ground. Some of their hmestone areas resembled the chalk downs in having a soil which was too thin and porous to support trees, and so in being " open " even at low altitudes. Most of the ancient roads are on these uplands, and they avoid the low- lands as much as possible. The settlements of man in the stone ages were chiefly on these " open '' areas ; most of the intervening valleys and the greater part of the Enghsh Lowland were then covered by a wilderness of dense forest, with frequent and extensive swamps. But these lower lands are the more fertile ; and hence, when man acquired metal tools and so attained slowly to mastery over the forest, he began the long task of clearing the forest and draining the marsh. As the work proceeded he left the bleak and relatively barren uplands for the sheltered and more fertile valleys and low plains. This valley-ward DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 53 migration has gone on almost to our own days ; and it has transferred the overwhelming majority of the people and practically all the important centres of population to the ^ near neighbourhood of the streams. The modern roads, and still more the railways, are usually in the valley bottoms, and now the map shows the population in such close and constant relation to the streams that from it one might almost assume that man is an amphibious animal. This complete change in the distribution of the relatively empty and densely peopled areas is in itself amply sufficient to justify a corresponding change in the boundaries of our major divisions, many of which, especially in South England, date from the period before the forest was completely subdued. In very recent years, however, there has been a distinct check to the valley-ward move- ment, and there is now in progress a partial reversal of it, a tendency to move once more to higher ground ; though there is no indication of any attempt to go above the tree-line. Modern developments in engineering, par- ticularly in regard to water supply and means of communication, have made it possible to build houses on the higher and drier, and so healthier, sites above the valley bottoms, and yet have in them all the conveniences of civihzed dwellings and be within easy 54 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND reach of the work-places in the valleys. In England this has led to a marked tendency to the placing of garden suburbs and cities, such as Hampstead and Letchworth, on rela- tively high ground ; it has taken many outer suburbs of London on to the heathlands and the lower slopes of the North Downs and the Chiltern Hills ; it has made possible the growth of a large town on the sandy heaths above the chffs of Bournemouth ; it has taken many people of the Lancashire and Yorkshire industrial areas on to the lower slopes of the Pennines ; and round every town it is taking the newer suburbs on to higher ground. The_ resulting check to the valley-ward trend seems to have become noticeable in our census returns by 1901 and 1911, certainly by the latter year. It is, however, very doubtful whether this process is likely to affect the main centres of organi- zation, the great cities which are the nodes of our systems of communication. However much the residential districts of London may be moved to the heights in search of healthier and pleasanter surroundings, the Port of London, its warehouses and offices, and the roads, railways and waterways which serve it, must remain in the bottom of the valley. The transport and collection of bulky and heavy goods will always be easier in the valleys than on the hills ; and these facts DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 55 will keep a very large proportion of our indus- trial and commercial work in the valleys. Also the existing towns are the nodes of our routes ; they are going concerns possessed of an enormous momentum ; and it seems most probable that the shift of population will be mainly a loosening out of the over- crowded masses round these centres and will not lead to any diminution of their importance. The growth of London's outer suburbs has not lessened, and is not likely to lessen, the importance of the "city" and the port. If this conclusion is correct, we may safely arrange our provinces with reference to the present distribution of the people. y The second great change in the distribution^ of population over England has been the growth and concentration of large numbers of people in the industrial areas during the last two centuries. Before the Industrial Revolution the most populous and wealthy parts of the country were included in the area between the east coast and two lines stretching from it, the first along the Downs south of the Thames Valley and westward by the Mendips to the Bristol Channel, the second south-westward from the Vale of York west of the Vale of Trent and the lower Severn to the Severn Estuary (see Fig. 5). Of the fourteen towns, including London, which were counties before 1888 (see p. 44), only four. Fig. 5.— Distribution of Population before tiie'Industrul Revolution (for England only). ^ Based on a table given on p. xxviii of the Report on the Census 0. iSiT : this was compiled from the parish registers for the preceding century. The towns marked were "counties of towns" before 1888 (cf. p. 44). REFCRENCC Pareons per S^uari Mil* Uninhabitfld From 1 Ifl S4 • 64-128 . I28-2S6 - 256-513 Above 512 To»ns eflOjOOO and vpivarda art ahot^n b^ b'cck dot.-, end am txdudtd from dtrnJ^ cakufjt/oos Fig. 6.— Distribution of Population in 191 i. \..'- 58 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Chester, Exeter, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Southampton, were outside this area ; and of these the first three were bases on early frontiers and the fourth the principal port for traffic with Normandy and Aquitaine. The East Midlands, the Eastern Counties and the Thames Valley were then the most populous sections of the country. The density of population in these districts is almost the same to-day as it was just before the Industrial Revolution ; but a glance at the modern population map (Fig. 6) is enough to show how completely the distri- bution of the populous areas has been altered by the growth of the industrial districts. The density of population in South Lancashire is now at least twenty times greater than it was about 1700 a.d., and probably ten times as great as that of the most densely peopled counties at that time. London is now the only important centre of population in the formerly most populous section ; and without London this area contains less than a fourth of the present population of England. The area to the North-west, which was formerly the poorest and least populous part of the country, now contains half of the total popula- tion, including the five cities which rank next to London in size— Birmingham, Liver- pool, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. Lancashire is now the most populous county DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 59 in England, with the County of London second, the West Riding of Yorkshire third and Durham fourth. The South Country and the South-western peninsula are still relatively thinly peopled, but they are now more com- parable to the Eastern counties than they were formerly. The coalfields of England occur chiefly in regions which were formerly among the poorest and least inhabited parts of the country. England was the first country to develop modern machine and factory industry ; and thus many of its great industrial tow^ns were established before the coming of the railway, some of them even before the turnpike roads and the canals. Hence these towns arose on, or very close to, the coalfields, because it was impossible to carry the coal to the pre-existing towns. For instance, York was then by far the largest and wealthiest town in Yorkshire. Had it been possible to convey the coal of the M^est Riding to that city at a reasonable cost, its possession of capital, of workers, and of estabhshed industries and connections, i.e. its industrial momentum, would have drawn the new industries to it and so enabled it to maintain and increase its lead in spite of the possible opposition of its guilds. But York is twenty miles from the nearest pits, and this was too great a distance for the then existing means of 6o PROVINCES OF ENGLAND transporting so heavy and bulky a material as coal : the factories had to be erected close to the coal mines; and York has been out- grown by several towns on the coalfield Similarly, Chester, the medieval capital of the region of our Lancashire Province was too far from either the South Lancashire or the North Wales coalfield to share in the growth based on the early utilization of coal ; and It has therefore fallen behind towns which were villages in its day of greatness Owing to these conditions at their birth, the industrial towns of England are largely new towns, which belong entirely to the Industrial Age, and have inherited few of the civic traditions of the medieval boroughs. The chief exceptions among our large towns are Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Nottingham Tt is doubtful whether the resulting loss has not been counterbalanced by the gain of free- dom in development due to the absence of guild and corporate restrictions on the new forms of industry and association. Indus- trial England is for the most part a new country, newer than the New England bevond the Atlantic. ^ No such complete break between medieval and modern cities occurs in any other country, chiefly because most other industrial regions were developed after the coming of the railway and so tended to focus their industries on DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 6i the existing cities which were within reach, rather than to create new centres of organiza- tion. This break with the centres of past life has been a very important fact in the - development of EngUsh industrialism and the many social problems to which it has given rise. A minor result of it which concerns us here is the fact that in Industrial England the county town is very rarely the chief centre of population for its county. New- castle-on-Tyne, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Norwich are the only county towns included in the list of forty-one EngHsh towns each of which had more than 100,000 inhabitants in 191 1 ; and these five, together with Northampton, are the only county towns which are also important as industrial centres. So complete a change in the positions of the chief centres of population and influence is itself a sufficient reason for a corresponding change in our major local government divisions, which are still mainly based on the Ancient Counties. All our Ancient Counties date back to the Middle Ages." Most of them appear to have reached some approximation to their present extent and form before Domesday Book was compiled (c. 1085 a.d.). But it is sufficient here to note that they were all in existence in almost their present form by the middle of the eighteenth century. Hence they all 62 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND .grew up before the Industrial Revolution in a period during which England was mainly a country of - self-supporting agricultural communities between which there was compara- tively httle intercourse. The counties of the South and South-east are derived m some cases, e.g. Kent, Sussex ' Fig. 7.-THE .Ancient Coiwies op South England as based ox " Open " Areas. The sh.iding denotes areas of forest and inar.sli. The towns shown are ; Oh rK-'f''?'''' '^ ^°"'^^y W Wantage Ch Chichester R,- Rochester Wn Wilton" H H? . n'f ■ I, li!"V''"->' '''' Winchester n nasrings Sh Sherborne \Vs Welk L London Sn Southampton and Essex, from separate settlements and kmgdoms of the Early English, in others Irom subdivisions, or shires, of Tthe kingdoms of Wessex and East AngHa. 1 But 'all 'the counties of this part of England agree in that they originated on open ground between the barrier areas of forest and marsh which then DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 63 cut up the country and separated the habitable areas from each other. Thus Sussex arose on the South Downs, bounded to the east by Romney Marsh, which cut it off from Kent, to the north by the forest of the Weald, Fig. 8.— The Ancient Counties of the Midlands as organized Round Valley Towns. which severed it from Kent and Surrey, and to the west by the marshes stretching inland from Hayhng and Langstone Harbours, which separated it from Hampshire. Berkshire was established on the peninsular area of down- t 64 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND land enclosed between the marsh and forest belts of the Upper Thames and Kennet valleys. And Somerset was separated from Wilts and Dorset by the forest of Selwood. The frontiers between these divisions were natural and obvious at that period ; but the progress of the valley-ward migration has smce then completely changed the relation of the boundaries to the populous areas. The valleys of the Weald and the plain of South-west Sussex are now more densely peopled than the South Downs. Wiltshire IS one of the oldest of English shires; its central area is the chalk upland of SaHsbury Plain, which, before the conquest of the forest, was a relatively populous district. Now the more populous parts of Wiltshire are its margmal lowlands to the north and west, in the valleys of the Upper Thames and the Bristol Avon, and the valleys about Salisbury in the south-east; and its central chalk plateau is so thinly peopled that it now forms an area of separation between these more populous lowland areas at the margins of the ancient shire. The Midland counties, from the Thames to the Humber and the Fenland to the Welsh border, were formed much later than those south of *-c, Thames. Most of them date from the conquest of Mercia from the Danes by the kings of Wessex in the ninth and F ,1 I p \ DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 65 tenth centuries. By this period the clearing of the forest in these districts seems to have made considerable progress. Also there were here much fewer and smaller areas of naturally '' open '' land, such as had formed the nuclei of the Southcountry shires (cf. Figs. 4 and 8, pp. 51 and 63). And in the Midlands the rivers are generally much larger and more navigable ; they guided the Angle and Danish settle- ments, and during and long after that period they formed the chief routes of the country. Hence the conquest proceeded by the valleys. At intervals in these valleys there was estab- lished a stronghold or " borough,'' in which the king's officer, the sheriff, had his head- quarters, and from which he controlled the surrounding district. Hence arose three, characteristic features of our Midland shires, namely :— 1. Each is named from its county town. 2. Each consists primarily of a part of the valley of the river on which that town is situated. 3. They are of fairly uniform size; each including approximately the land within a day's march from the county town ; though those in the south-east are generally smaller than those to the north-west. I 66 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The boundaries appear to have been deter- mined slowly as the intervening areas were cleared and settled ; and they are generally either near to the watersheds between the main streams or along smaller and less navig- able streams flowing in valleys which were formerly stretches of marsh. In detail the county boundaries here are very irregular. Of these shires Warwickshire is primarily the valley of the Stratford Avon, and Glouces- tershire and Worcestershire the lower and middle parts of the Severn Valley ; Northamp- tonshire is the part of the Nen Valley above the Fenland, though the county has reached over the water-parting in many places ; the shires of Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon and Cambridge arose along the valley of the Great Ouse, and those of Stafford,. Derby and Nottingham along that of the Trent, while Leicestershire is the valley of the Soar and Hertfordshire that of the Lea. Rutland is of much later origin. Medieval England, at least as an adminis- trative unit, did not effectively incorporate Yorkshire and the North Country. These regions acknowledged the overlordship of the kings who ruled over the English Lowland, but, like Wales and the Welsh Marches, they were too remote from the capital at London to be easily or directly controlled from there. Towards the end of the Middle Ages they DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 67 were ruled by the Council of the North ; and not until after the time of the Tudors and the Commonv/ealth do these remoter regions appear to have been really integral parts of England. In the same way it seems true that Cornwall and Devon were too remote to form a part of England ; they were rather outlying dependencies before the Age of Discovery. With the general advance in organization and communications at the Renascence it became possible to incorpor- ate these areas. Henry VIII divided Wales into counties and assimilated its administra- tion to that of England in 1535 a.d. But the palatine bishopric of Durham did not come completely within the English local government system till the nineteenth century. Since the reign of Henry VIII (1509-47) there have been no substantial alterations in the limits of the Ancient Counties ; though by an Act of 1844 many of the detached parts of such counties were annexed to those counties by which they were surrounded. But in the Tudor Period the population of England and Wales was probably not more than 2 J miUions. It is now over 36 milHons, or more than fourteen times as great. At that period England was an agricultural and pastoral country : now it is predominantly industrial and commercial. Then its mineral wealth was largely unknown and unimportant : 68 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND r now its minerals are among the chief material ^sources of its wealth. Before and during the Tudor Period the South-east of England was by far the more populous and wealthy part of the land : now the North-west has taken that position. Such a complete change in the distribution of the people, especially when it is associated with the more local changes due to the drainage and cultivation of many formerly marshy valley bottoms, is sufficient a priori evidence that the local government divisions of that period have now no satisfactory relation to the actual distri- bution of the people, and so that a reorgani- zation of our major local government areas is long overdue. CHAPTER IV PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION The delimitation of such major local govern- ment divisions as the provinces here suggested should be made on some definite principles. Those which have been followed in this work are six in number. They are stated briefly below, approximately in the order of the importance here attached to them ; and the statement is followed by some discussion of each of them. ■| 1. The provincial boundaries should be so chosen as to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary movements and activities of the people. 2. There should be in each province a definite capital, which should be the real focus of its regional life. This implies further that the area and communications of the province should be such that the capital is easily accessible from every part of it. 3. The least of the provinces should 69 70 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND ji contain a population sufficiently numerous to justify self-government. 4. No one province should be so populous as to be able to dominate the 1 federation. I 5. The provincial boundaries should be L drawn near watersheds rather than across f valleys, and very rarely along streams. j 6. The grouping of areas must pay \f regard to local patriotism and to tradition. Our first principle — " The provincial boundaries should be so chosen as to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary movements and activities of the people '* — follows from the fact that a man's work-place and his residence should be in the same province. The division of interests which necessarilv results when a man works in the area of one local authority and has his home in that of another is detrimental to the growth of any sane local patriotism. It ensures that his interest in local affairs and elections is divided, and often he takes practically no part in them. The apathy of the majority of the people, which is so great a handicap to London's local government, is probably due in great part to the confusion of local authorities in Greater London and the lack PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 71 of any one authority for that vast urban area. Our boundaries should be so drawn that no suburban district is severed from its focal town ; though in so small and crowded a country as England the complete logical apphcation of this principle is impossible, for in some cases the outer or detached suburbs of different city areas overlap — London's detached suburbs extend to Bournemouth and Cromer, and those of Liverpool and Man- chester along the coast from Llandudno to Blackpool and to the Lake District and the Pennines. From this principle it follows that the boundaries should be so drawn that any area of continuous dense population should be kept as a whole in one province : and hence that the boundaries will in general be drawn along those more thinly peopled tracts of the country which do in fact form, relatively, areas of separation between the more popu- lous districts. The population map is thus one of the chief guides in the dehmitation of our provinces ; and all the boundaries here suggested should be compared with a map showing, in as much detail as possible, the distribution of the people over the land, e.g. Plate VIII of Bartholomew's Atlas of England and Wales (cf. Fig. 6, p. 57). The fact that the population is not spread evenly over the face of the country is one of the 12 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND principal considerations in our delimitation of provinces. This fact alone renders it quite impossible to obtain satisfactory pro- vinces with any artificial uniformity of population or area, such as have often been suggested by people who have not studied the actual distribution of the population. Our second principle is — " There should be in each province a definite capital, which should be the real focus of its regional life. This im- phes further that the area and communi- cations of the province should be such that the capital is easily accessible from every part of it." This has led to the arrangement of two or three of the provinces round their capitals, and to some discussion of the capital for each. This particular principle bears so directly on the real unity of a province that it is, in our opinion, much more fundamental than any considerations as to the relative areas or importance of the provinces. The next chapter is devoted to a consideration of the provincial capitals. On the map-diagram (Fig. lo, p. 228), which illustrates the relation of the boundaries and capitals of these provinces to the railways of the country, there is drawn a circle of PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION n thirty miles radius round each provincial capital. In most cases a very large majority of the population of the province is within this circle. This distribution is referred to in detail in dealing with each province. These circles, together with the railways marked, give some indication as to the accessibiHty of the capital from various parts of the pro- vince. Any place within one of them should be within an hour's journey of the centre if on a railway, and within two hours from any position. All the provincial capitals are good road centres, and these distances will therefore give some indication of their accessi- biHty from the various parts of the provinces by road. In some cases we have suggested certain obviously desirable extensions of the railway system to connect up outlying areas or link together separate Hues. A list of these is given in Appendix II, p. 276. The third principle underlying our dehmi- tation of the provinces is — *' The least of the provinces should contain a population sufficiently numerous to justify self-government.'' This principle is self-evident. Without a sufficient minimum of population it is im- possible that the province could include such a variety of minds and opinions as to make 74 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND democratic self-government a reality. The actual figure taken as the basis in this dis- cussion is one million. This is a convenient round number which fits into English condi- tions ; no special importance is claimed for it. In lands where population is spread more sparsely the minimum is necessarily lower, and the area over which it is spread greater, than in England. Here the million fits with the requirement that all parts of a province should be within a moderate dis- tance of its capital, even in the more thinly peopled parts of the country. It is of interest to compare with this figure the populations of some of the existing self- governing states of the British Commonwealth and the United States. Seven of the nine provinces of Canada and four of the six states of Australia have populations of less than one million each. New Zealand had 1,099,295 people in 1916. Newfoundland had in 1914 only 247,710 inhabitants. And the Union of South Africa had a white population of 1,276,242 in its four provinces in 1911. In the United States of America there were at the census of 1910 no less than seventeen \^ states with populations of less than a million each. And no canton of Switzerland has so large a population. The experience of all these indicates that our figure is sufficiently high. ^■1 PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 75 The fourth principle set out is— '' No one province should be so popu- lous as to be able to dominate the federation.'* This is one reason for advocating a division of England ; since otherwise that country could, in a British Parliament, easily outvote the combined representatives of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In most federal states there is no one dominant partner. But in the German Empire, from 1871 to 1918, one state, Prussia, had a decisive majority of the total population and wealth of the federation, and so was able to dominate it. This domir^tion rested on the unity of Prussia: if that state had been so divided that, for instance, the Rhineland and Prussia Proper, Brandenburg and Silesia had entered the federation as distinct members there would have been no likelihood of these divisions, and the other Prussian provinces, acting as a united body within the Empire. The domination of a single state in a federation is not likely to be favourable fo the best interests of the other members or of the federal state as a whole. Hence it is not desirable that England should remain a unit in the proposed federation of the British Isles or of Great Britain. Also, there M 76 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND are in England several distinct regions, each of which is sufficiently populous and distinct from the others to form an individual member of the federation, such as, for instance, East Anglia, the North Country, Lancashire and Cheshire, and the Devonian Peninsula. These are at least as distinct from each other in many respects as any one of them is from Wales or Scotland ; and we believe that the best interests of the people would be served by giving each such region full provincial self-government, on the same footing as Scot- land or Wales. There is no reason whatever to assume that the representatives of such provinces of England would act together in .a federal parliament in the way in which members sent there from one national parlia- ment might tend to do. The division of England here suggested gives us twelve provinces. When we compare the populations of these with those of other parts of the ^United Kingdom (see table, p. 267 and Fig. 13, p. 266), we find that in order of populousness Scotland and Ireland would rank respectively third and fourth, and Wales eighth. And the most populous province, London, would include less than a fourth of the total population. Hence the division does secure a series of provinces which could form a federation satisfying the twin requirements that all the members shall PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION n be comparable to each other in resources and that no one of them shall be able to dominate the whole. A considerable range of population is both inevitable and desirable, so long as no one or two of them can outvote all the rest. The fifth principle is — *' The provincial boundaries should be drawn near watersheds rather than across valleys, and very rarely along streams." Among the most vital of the matters in regard to which we need to organize the resources of the country on a large scale and over wider areas than those of any existmg Local Authority are :— (a) Water supply for our towns and villages, (ft) Drainage. ^ (c The supply and distribution of elec- tricity and gas for Hghting and power. {d) The provision and maintenance of roads and tramways. ^The main lines of all these must normally and naturally be laid along the valleys; 78 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND since there they meet with the easiest gradients and the minimum of natural obstacles. Hence also lines of travel and industrial and commer- cial establishments, factories, warehouses, offices, etc., are usually placed in the valleys.' lA valley is a natural unit area for most purposes of human organization, primarily because the higher ground which separates one valley from another is, to a greater or less extent, an obstacle to intercourse and less favourable to settlement and occupation. Our population is mainly in the valleys. From this it follows that the boundaries should be drawn near the watersheds. This is of much greater importance in areas of considerable relief, where the valleys are sharply cut off from each other by high ridges, than it is on low plains. Over most of England the valleys are distinct ; but the dales of the Pennines are much more strongly separated from each other than are the valleys of the Cotswold Hills or the Downs, and still more so than those of the Midlands ; while in the Fenland we have a region so flat that the interstream ridges have practically dis- appeared, and the rivers, with their bordering strips of floodland, become the barriers. Thus the principle that boundaries should keep to the watersheds is of great importance in most parts of the country ; but it ceases to be of much value in the lowlying plains m PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 79 about the head of the Humber and the Wash (cf. the population map, p. 57). In very many cases it is by no means easy to determine the exact line of a waterparting, even in a highland area. On the Pennines it is often difficult to know exactly from what line the waters divide to flow eastward and westward, to the North and Irish Seas respec- tively. There are bogs from which water flows in both directions. Also the exact waterparting is often a very sinuous line. It is not desirable that the boundaries between administrative divisions should be unneces- sarily compHcated or tortuous ; and the upper ends of small valleys are rarely of great importance in this respect. Hence the watershed should only mark out the general line of the boundary, and not necessarily govern it in small details. Where the application of this principle ■ would have led to delimitations contrary to those indicated by the principles stated above, it has been regarded as the less important one. The boundaries of our provinces cut across the valleys of the Trent and the Severn because to draw them on the watersheds would involve cutting up the densely peopled areas of South and North Staffordshire ; and it is more desirable to keep such continuous areas of dense population each in one province than to keep to watershed boundaries. 8o PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The last of our six principles is — *' The grouping of areas must pay regard to local patriotism and to tradition/' Any provinces of England must necessarily supersede and absorb the counties. Hence county patriotism becomes a factor of great weight in the delimitation of the provinces. Most suggestions hitherto made for the division of the country into major local govern- ment areas for any purpose have been limited to grouping the existing counties in various ways. These have sometimes been accom- panied by suggestions for some transfers of districts from one county to another, for instance Ribblesdale from Yorkshire to Lanca- shire, in order to get rid of some of the worst of the existing boundaries. The writer made some scores of attempts at such arrangements of counties before coming to the conclusion that the only hope of an effective solution lies in abandoning all attempts to base the provincial boundaries on those of the counties, and starting afresh by applying the above principles to the existing state of distributions in England. The task of attaining a practical and satisfactory delimitation of provinces is a geographical one, and it can only be ac- complished by a systematic application of geographical science to the existing conditions. The provinces reached by the application PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 8i of these principles to England do, however, generally consist of groups of counties. The relation of their boundaries to those of the counties will be referred to later (Chapter XXI), after the provinces have been con- sidered separately ; but this fact simplifies the relation to county patriotism and gives ground for the hope that this may be merged into the wider patriotism of the province. It is very difficult to make any estimate of the extent and strength of local patriotism in any part of the country. But it does seem to be generally agreed that it is very much stronger in those counties which approxi- mate to natural regions than it is elsewhere. Thus Yorkshire, Lancashire and Devonshire are counties in which it is strong ; while in Surrey, Hertfordshire and Rutlandshire it appears to be far less important. In some cases the feeling may be associated with a wider region than the county. County patriot- ism is not prominent in Durham ; and the inhabitants of that palatine county are apt to think and speak of themselves as North- countrymen, and pride themselves on that fact, rather than as Men of Durham : their local patriotism is for the North Country rather than for the county. It seems possible that the same is true as between the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and the region of East Anglia, of which they are parts. 6 », ti V J* I .V '1 82 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND County patriotism is usually associated with the Ancient Counties. In London and Birmingham some of the people seem still to associate themselves with the Ancient Counties of which parts are included in those cities.. This is noticeable particularly in the crowds which support intercounty contests, as in county cricket. In Yorkshire local patriotism is for the Ancient County, though that has long ceased to be a unit for any purpose of local government. Yet it is note- worthy that in football, which as an organized game is far more directly dependent on popular support than is county cricket, the organization of clubs into leagues is concerned with the existing distribution of the people and means of communication, and not with associations of the past. Thus Carlisle joined the North-eastern League, which has its headquarters in Newcastle, and Stoke and Burslem are in the Lancashire Combination. The grouping of such organizations as these may well be a far better guide to local feeling in such matters than any appeal to tradition can be. Yet the association of Notts and Derbyshire which is so widely recognized has its roots far back in the Middle Ages, when the two shires were for loi>g practically united under one sheriff; and this union rested on the fact that there is no serious barrier between PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION 83 them and both could be easily controlled from the one centre of Nottingham. Now the Erewash Valley, along the centre of which the county boundary runs,^ is one of the most densely peopled areas in the two counties. And in the life of the people of this valley the boundary is at best an interesting anachro- nism, at worst a serious obstacle to the efficient organization of public services. The separation of the dense and compact population of this valley between two counties is the effect of one of the worst of our local bound- aries. Local feeling fully recognizes the unity of the Erewash Valley ; and, we believe, associates the valley as a whole with Nottingham as its *' town.'' In all cases of delimitation of new boundaries, and the resulting super- session of older boundaries, local patriotism is concerned ; though in most of the details of the boundaries here suggested it has per- force been disregarded, because the writer cannot know its strength in the various areas. This suggestion to divide England into provinces differs from the many attempts to extend the limits of cities and towns by the incorporation of neighbouring areas mainly in its scale, and in that it aims at a logical ^ Less than half its length is actually on the present course of the Erewash, which is now an insignificant stream. See article on " The Long Eaton District " by the writer, in the Geographical Teacher, Spring, 1915. 84 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND application of definite principles to the whole country (cf. pp. 29 and 48). The boundaries of counties of all kinds have been moved. None of the larger of our present local government divisions has kept the same boundaries for any long period, and most of the boundaries between them are comparatively modern. Hence the suggestions in this book involve no changes which have not already been put into practice on some scale within the last century (since 1832). They involve merely the consideration of the problem of the adjust- ment of local government divisions as a whole, instead of the fragmentary treatment it has received in the past. y ii.m CHAPTER V THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS Many people are sufficiently famihar with some flourishing country market town to realize in how many ways it is a focus for the human life and organization of the district round about it. The importance of such a town is normally due in the first instance to its situation at a convenient node of routes for its area. On market-day it is the meeting place of an important section of the population of that area, who come in primarily to dispose of their produce and to purchase stores. Hence it is the local focus of collecting and distributing trades, of shopping and of news. Usually it contains the offices of the Rural District Council and of the Poor Law Guardians, the Petty Sessional Court, the Divisional Police Station, the offices of the local Press, branches of banks and insurance companies, the secondary schools, and other institutions concerned w4th the hfe of the whole of the area it serves. Of these smaller regional . centres such towns as 85 - ^ i: '^ w i|^ 86 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Newbury, Barnard Castle, Banbury and Oundle are examples. Such a market area should, if possible, be included as a whole in one province, since it is a unit area for some of the ordinary movements and activities of the people. At present many minor difficulties of administration arise where it extends into two or more counties, as is often the case : for instance, patients under the National Insurance scheme at Newtown, three miles from its market town and regional focus at Newbury, Berks, were required to go to the nearest Hampshire market town, Whitchurch, ten miles distant across the Downs, because Newtown is just within the northern boundary of the Adminis- trative County of Southampton, which here oversteps the Downs to include the southern slopes of the Kennet Valley. Instances of the regional capital on the larger scale of our provinces are necessarily fewer ; therefore general statements are here altogether inadequate and it is necessary to examine particular cases. We may start by some consideration of the very modern city of KTmingham. This is by far the chief centre of population and the largest town of the West Midlands. During the war it has been theTieadquarters of the West Midland Divisions set up for various purposes under the Defence of the Realm Act, and so it has THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 87 been practically recognized as being in some respects the capital of that region. In this region Birmingham was the chief seat of certain metal industries, a position to which it rose gradually in the centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Tudor Period. Its possession of deposits of a fine sand suitable for casting and its position near the Forest of Arden favoured its metal- working when charcoal was the chief fuel, and when coal replaced charcoal the town found itself near the chief coalfield of the West Midlands, so near that the cost of carriage on the roads and canals then coming into existence placed no serious check on its continued growth. It was also favoured in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the absence of the restrictions of a medieval corporate borough, a result of its previous insignificance. As the chief focus of the metal- working industries, and the largest town of this industrial region, Birmingham naturally became the headquarters of the commercial and financial undertakings developed there —the site of offices, warehouses, exchanges, banks. Its natural nodality. is not great, though it has possessed^ a local market for several centuries ; but no other site in the Black Country has any greater nodality. At the beginning of the industrial period it was already a considerable centre of industry ; r '^i-3 ill 88 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND as such it drew the new roads and canals and railways to it and so has acquired a very high degree of artificial jiodaHty; it is the chief railway focus of the 'HTdlands, in spite of the fact that it is not the actual place of intersection of the two great natural cross routes of the English Lowland— from London to the Midland Gate and from the Severn Estuary to Yorkshire. This dominant nodahty ^ makes it the best centre in the West Midlands ' for the collecting and distributing trades, and for those numerous industries in which ^ facilities for the gathering together of materials and for the wide distribution of the products are of prime importance— such as the clothing and furnishing industries. The same con- ditions make it a great shopping centre. But where people have come together for business and shopping they can conveniently stay for relaxation ; and so the shopping centre is also a centre for theatres and kindred places. Again, all these factors make the city an educational centre of the first rank. The University of Birmingham is one of the most vigorous of those youthful universities which date from the present generation, and its activities and influence reach far beyond the city boundaries. The city also contains the headquarters of many societies concerned with local investigations of various kinds in the Midlands, and of numerous other societies THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 89 and associations, social, athletic, philanthropic, and so on. But perhaps the chief_ function of a true capital is that it serves a's a cleanng-house and manufactory for the ideas and ideals and enthusiasms of its region. It cannot be a mere receiver and imitator of intellectual and social movements, though it is necessarily receptive and adaptive. This function oi a true capital is as much more difficult to analyse and estimate as it is more vital than the simpler factors of geographical nodalit and commercial or industrial activity. It finds some expression in various association^ and agitations, but it is perhaps most definitely marked in the Press. This is indeed a principal factor in the influence of any capital, great or small. It has been said that London's opinion is dominant over all the area within which the average man has a London morning paper on his breakfast-table. Such a saying should not be taken too literally ; but it embodies an important truth. An influential press does tend to reflect and produce a sense of unity and a common measure of opinion and sentiment in the people among whom it circulates. Hence those cities in which such a press has its home and its base of operations are in a very real sense capitals of regions which are united by some similarity of senti- ments and opinions. In fact, it becomes con- 7. 90 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND ceivable that the Hmits of these regions may be largely determined by the range of circu- lation of the periodical press. Over the whole of such a region there tends to develop a distinctive community of opinions and ideals, of fashions and amusements ; so that its capital tends to become a separate focus of pohtical and social thought and hfe, and as such to represent the region in the life of the nation. Mr. Mackinder has suggested that there are two such foci in England— London and the Manchester-Birmingham area.^ But while the two latter cities may agree in differing from London they are themselves distinct foci. They can only be so grouped together if we think of them primarily as different from, and in some sense antagonistic to, London. Birmingham is itself a capital in this respect, with its own hfe and thought, distinct from and independent of both Man- chester and London, and itself leading and formulating the opinions of its region. Its political record since the Industrial Revolu- tion, and the independence of its press, are evidences of its standing. It is '^ town " for a populous and important area of the Midlands, the area which forms the greater part of our suggested " Severn " province. There are other cities, or rather conur- ' See Britain and the British Seas, second edition p. 338- Oxford, 1907. THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 91 bations, in England which have, for the regions in which they are situated, an impor- tance of the same order as that of Birmingham for the West Midlands. Each of these has a distinctive character of its own. Liverpool and Manchester (Professor Geddes' '* Lancas- ton''), Newcastle-on-Tyne and its neighbours, Leeds and Bradford, Sheffield, and Bristol are the chief of these. The South_ Wales urban ^region focusing on Tirdiff, ancf the Glasgow-Edinburgh conurL)ation in Scotland, are of the same type. Newcastle-on-Tyne is the chief town of the populous industrial region of North-eastern England. Within a radius of thirty miles from its bridge there is a population of more than two millions— half of them within twelve miles. This dense population is closely knit together by its contiguity, the similarity of its chief occupations, and its remoteness from any other comparable region ; for this is the most isolated of the densely peopled areas of England (cf. Fig. 6, p. 57)- The cluster of towns along the lower Tyne, which is the natural capital of this region, has a total population of some three-quarters of a miUion, though the persistence of the county boundary and other divisions leaves only a third of them within the boundary of the City of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Newcastle differs from Birmingham, and those other EngUsh cities 3 1 ».f 92 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND whose importance is a recent development m that It is situated at a very important ^tf^f^.^'^'ri '"°"'''- '* '^ ^ bridge-town at the head of sea navigation on the Tvne ^^J^ xT^ intersection of the two chief routes of the North Country-the Great North Road .^"'xT i^^n"^ ^"^ Scotland, which enters by the Northallerton Gate and leaves bv the openmg between Cheviot and the sea, and the east-west route from sea to sea through the fyne Gap, which connects its eastern and western lowlands. This position made it the chief strategic base in the Enghsh border dunng the centuries of warfare with Scotland and the frontier traditions of that time do in many ways persist to help make of the isorth Country a region distinct from any other part of England, a distinctness which is strongly aided and emphasized by its relative remoteness from the capital. It was at an earher period the central part of the Angle kingdom of Northumbria, which stretched from the Humber to the Forth ; and it is still in many respects an intermediate region between the English and Scottish Lowlands rather than a part of either. In modern times Tyneside owes to its situation in the heart of a coalfield an industrial development which has added to it the artificial nodalitv of a great railway centre and all those other teatures of a strong regional capital which we THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 93 have already noted in the case of Bir- mingham. The next city of this type is Leeds, separ- ated from Newcastle by a direct distance of eighty miles, which is more than twice that from Leeds to either Manchester or Sheffield. This city is one of the series of fall-line towns at the eastern foot of the Pennine Upland. It differs from the other towns of this series in that it is at the eastern end of a through route, the Aire Gap, and so possesses a much greater nodality. But since it lies some ten miles west of the hne of the Old North Road, and twenty from the main line of the North- eastern Railway, through the Vale of York, its natural nodahty is less than that of New- castle. Before the industrial period it was a market town of considerable local import- ance ; during that period its possession of a higher degree of nodality than any other site on the West Riding coalfield made it the focal town of that industrial district and enabled it to become a regional capital of the same order as Birmingham and Newcastle. The coalfield which stretches for sixty miles along the eastern foot of the southern Pennines, from Leeds to Nottingham, has no one nodal site comparable to Newcastle or to that of Manchester in respect to the Lancashire coal- field. At its northern end is Leeds, to which we have already referred. At the southern *,H - "M 94 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND end is Nottingham, out on the lowland a bridge-town on the Trent and a node of more numerous but less definite and important natural routes than those which meet at Leeds. Here is a regional capital for the Trent Basin, somewhat smaller and weaker than those so far discussed. The city is already recognized in some degree as the regional capital of the East Midlands : it was the scene of the conference of the local Food Economy representatives for that area— the counties of Nottingham, Derby, Leicester Rutland, Lincoln and Northampton — on December 17, 1917 ; : and it is the seat of the only university institution of the region. -■ About half-way between Leeds and Notting- ham is Sheffield, situated in a side valley on the east of the broadest part of the southern Pennmes. The town at the entrance to this valley is Doncaster, that at the junction of the chief tributary dale is Rotherham ; and from It there is no easy route through the upland ; hence the natural nodality of Sheffield IS very small. But Sheffield had exceptionally favourable local conditions for the early- development of its iron and steel industries ■ the growth of those industries led to the concentration here of a large population; ' See Nottingham Guardian of December 18 IQ17 ' Efforts are being made to establisJi a Umversity Coliefte at Leicester. -^ "* THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 95 and the economic demand for good communi- cations between this industrial district and other areas of dense population has led to the construction of roads and railways through the southern Pennines in spite of the formid- able physical obstacles ; ^ so that Sheffield is now an important railway centre and has acquired a very considerable artificial nodality. This has enabled it to become the effective focus of a small region, which includes most of the High Peak District and the greater part of the area drained by the river Don, and has a population of nearly one and a quarter millions. The character of its indus- tries marks it off very clearly from the Leeds and Nottingham districts, and emphasizes the distinctive character of this region, which we have marked off as the province of Peakdon. In the south-west of the country Bristol is another regional capital of the type here discussed. In its natural nodalit;^> and the strength of the traditions which mark it as the capital of its region, the '' West of England,'* it is more akin to Newcastle and Nottingham than to Birmingham or Sheffield. It has now a population similar to those of the Sheffield and Nottingham urban areas, but not much more than half as numerous as that centring on Newcastle and Birmingham. ' See article by the writer in the Scottish Geographical Magazine for January 1917. ill ¥1 96 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Last, but by no means least, of these great provincial capitals is the South Lancashire urban region, with its poles in Liverpool and Manchester. In England, Manchester is second only to London as the headquarters of indus- trial, commercial and financial interests, a railway centre, an active source of ideas and agitations and new movements, the home of an influential press, and a pubhshing centre. It is the headquarters of the Co-operative Movement ; and it has been a chief centre of the Labour and Socialist pohtical develop- ments of our time, as in recent generations it was the home of the '' Manchester School." In the British Association Handbook to Man- chester 1915,1 it is said : "... the city has this further characteristic of a capital, that it is an active manufactory of agitation and thought. It is the headquarters of the temper- ance movement and the vegetarian movement, and indeed harbours as many hving causes as Oxford does lost ones. It has more jour- nalists than any [other] city in England except London and the most literary daily news- paper in the country. The repertory theatre came to life again in Manchester and called into being a school of dramatists, ..." In the tendency of its population to segregate » Manchester in 1915, published by the Manchester University Press, igis—from the article on "Manchester of To-day" by W. H. Mills (p. 9). THE PROVINCIAl. CAPITALS 97 into suburbs of distinctive types, as its Jews cluster in Cheetham Hill, Manchester recalls London and other great capitals ; and this tendency has probably gone further here than in any other of our provincial capitals. The urban area of South Lancashire and Cheshire has a total population of more than four miUions, and so may rank after Greater London and New York among the great conurbations of the world. It is not yet generally thought of as a unit because of the fact that the centres of its two areas of maximum density, Liverpool and Manchester, are thirty miles apart, and they have developed up to the present as distinct and often rival cities. Many other towns in this region have been absorbed in its growth, though they are not yet amalgamated or associated for local government purposes. Here the need for a local authority, such as our suggested pro- vincial parliament, which can co-ordinate the expansion and regional planning of the whole area and its interlocking pubhc services, is greater and more urgent than anywhere else outside Greater London. In the south-eastern lowland of England London is dominant. In the whole of this area there are not more than fourteen miUion people, and of these Greater London includes some eight millions—considerably more than half. The south-east of England differs com- 7 98 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND pletely from the north and west of the country in many respects ; it is more generally fertile, and it lacks the highland barriers and sea inlets which cut up the rest of the country into well-defined natural regions ; it has no important sources of coal and iron, and so has no corresponding industrial areas ; it is nearer to, and much more intimately influenced by, the Continent, and has thus been set apart in its historical development from the more remote and insular parts of the land ; and lastly, it has near its centre a site of such pre-eminent nodahty^ that the capital which grew up here^'TiaFIBeen able to dominate and unite the whole area. None of the provincial capitals hitherto discussed is within a hundred miles of London. Within this radius the various natural regions are much less strongly marked off from one another and are more Hke each other than those of the rest of England ; hence the overwhelming prepon- derance of London has prevented the develop- ment of any other regional capital comparable to those of the North and West. Thus the capitals of the various provinces of south- eastern England are of a different order from those of the north-western half of the country, and they are far less influential, even within their regions. Oxford is the chief node of routes and market centre of the Upper Thames Basin ; but as a focus of thought and opinion THE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS 99 it is almost a part of the metropolis. ^Jn East AngUa, Norwich is the largest town and the traditional centre; and it appears to be in some degree a regional capital for that part of England. In the Hampshire Basin Southampton occupies a site analogous to that of the national capital in the London Basin ; but for this region also London is '' town," and there Is no real regional capital in it as yet. In the south-western peninsula Plymouth is so much the most important focus of population that there_ can be no hesitation in marking it as the capital of the province. - CHAPTER VI PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND The North Country is one of the most dis- tinctive of the more populous regions of England. A glance at the population map shows that the denselj^ peopled mining and industrial area of the North-east Coast is more distinctly set apart from the other areas of similar density of population than any of the latter are from each other. To the north the barren highlands of the Cheviots and the Southern Uplands of Scotland inter- pose a band of thinly peopled country some eighty miles in width between this region and the populous Midland Valley of Scotland. To the south the North York Moors, the Central Pennines, and the Cumbrian Moun- tains form a similar, though narrower, band of scantily peopled land across the island which holds the North Country apart from the rest of England. The northern boundary of this province is the Anglo-Scottish line ; though it is possible that the citizens of Berwick-on-Tweed might lOO PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND loi prefer to be included in Scotland, in which case it would be drawn south of that town. To the xcast and west this province reaches the sea, and its southern boundary is shown in its general trend on the map at the front of this volume and on Fig. lo, p. 228. This southern boundary starts from the west coast about ten miles south of St. Bees Head. It is drawn directly inland along the ridge which forms the north-western water- shed of the River Irt to the western end of the Cumbrian Mountains north-west of Wast Water. Thence it stretches eastward to Shap Fells along the central axial ridge of those mountains, which here forms the main water- shed. From here our line follows the divide between the headwaters of the Rivers Eden and Lune, on the moors which separate the northern and southern divisions of Westmor- land, to the head of Edendale, where it reaches the county boundary between Westmorland and the North Riding of York. On the indefinite waterparting between the head- streams of the Eden and the Ure the line almost coincides with the county boundary ; and thence it follows that boundary round the head of Swaledale to the crest of Brownber Edge. Here it reaches the headwaters of streams which flow to the Tees, and from here it stretches eastwards along the divide between these streams and the northern tribu- n. rt I02 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND taries of the Swale, between Teesdale and Swaledale. Between the villages of Newsham and Dalton the watershed, and with it the boundary, crosses a marshy valley which cuts through this ridge to the western end of a secondary ridge whose highest part is known as Gatherley Moor. Along this latter ridge it stretches in a south-easterly direction to the edge of the lowland. Across the North- allerton Gate our boundary follows the Tees- Swale waterparting, which is very rarely dis- tinct, passing between the villages of Barton and Middleton-Tyas, and to the north of Great Smeaton and Appleton-Wiske. It crosses the Great North Road about a mile north of Scotch Corner, the main line of the North-eastern Railway a mile south of Ery- holme Junction, and the Leeds and Stockton branch (once the main line of the Leeds and Northern Counties Railway) a little north of West Rounton Gates. Thence it stretches south-eastward up the slopes of the North York Moors between Potto and Ingleby Arn- cHffe to reach the crest on Whorlton Moor, between Whorlton-in-Cleveland and Osmother- ley. From this moor our boundary is drawn eastward along the axis of the North York Moors between the streams which flow north- ward to the Rivers Leven and Esk and those which flow southward to the Vale of Pickering. At its eastern end the line reaches the North I PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 103 Sea by the cliffs south of Robin Hood's Bay. This southern boundary of North England, as it is here defined, satisfies the conditions for a good provincial boundary laid down in Chapter IV to a remarkably high degree. For the greater part of its length it is drawn through almost uninhabited country on water- sheds between valleys, all of which open out away from it. At its western end it crosses the coastal plain approximately half-way between the small market towns of Egremont and Ravenglass, where that plain narrows somewhat and so marks off the two market areas. On the moors of Central Westmorland the boundary is similarly nearly half-way between the market towns to north and south of it, namely Appleby and Kendal and Kirkby Stephen and Sedbergh. Again to the east of the Pennines, where it crosses a fairly populous area in the Northallerton Gate, it passes nearly half-way between pairs of market towns in Barnard Castle and Richmond-on- Swale, Darlington and Northallerton and Stockton-on-Tees and Northallerton. And it reaches the East Coast midway between Whitby and Scarborough. This relation to the centres of population indicates that the boundary does satisfy the first requirement of a good administrative boundary in that it would minimize any interference with the I04 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND normal movements and associations of the people dwelling near to it. Our boundary leaves to the North Country all the county of Cumberland except its projection along the coastal plain to the south of the mountains, in the valleys of the Rivers Irt (Wasdale) and Esk and the western half of the Duddon Valley The River Duddon forms the present countv boundary between Lancashire and Cumber- land ; and this division of a small valley along Its stream produces the usual result oi cuttmg a natural unit area in two for its local government. Its market town is Broughton-m-Furness ; but it is divided be- tween the Rural Districts of Bootle (Cumber- land) and Ulverston (Lancashire), which are mamly in the neighbouring valleys. The part of Cumberland which our boundary leaves to the Lancashire Province includes the Urban District of Millom, the Rural District of Bootle and two parishes, Gosforth and Wasdale, in the Rural District of Whitehaven I'rom a pomt a mile east of Scafell Pike to Dunmail Raise our boundary coincides with that between Cumberland and West- morland. Thence it is drawn across the middle 0$ Westmorland and through the North Riding of York. In the last-named county it leaves the whole of Teesdale and the iron-mining district of Cleveland to the North Country PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 105 The three market towns of the Tees Valley, Barnard Castle, Darlington and Stockton, are all on the northern side of the river ; and Teesdale presents a glaring example of the absurd results which follow when a county boundary is drawn along a stream so as to intersect so obvious a natural unit as a Pen- nine dale. The dale is cut into two rural districts, Barnard^ Castle in Durham and Startforth in the North Riding, but these are united to form the Teesdale Poor Law Union and Registration District in the Regis- tration County of Durham. It has but one market town, at Barnard Castle, and its district councils naturally meet here and work in common as far as possible. For voluntary associations the dale is, of course, a unit area, as, for instance, for the Teesdale Farmers' Co-operative Association ; and there is but one local newspaper, the Teesdale Mercury. The fact that the river forms a boundary between two administrative counties handicaps the organization of public services in the dale in many ways, of which we may mention that of the bridges. The duty of bridging the river is shared between the county councils of Durham and the North Riding, and the work requires the co-operation of both ; but for each of these bodies its share of Teesdale is a relatively unimportant out- lying part of its area. A not unnatural io6 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND result is the fact that from Piercebridge west- ward there are only five pubhc road bridges w'"^ r« *^^ J^^^' ^"^ two toll-bridges, at Wychffe and Eggleston Abbey ; while across the corresponding, but somewhat shorter stretch of the Wear west of Bishop Auckland there are twelve bridges. Weardale is rather more populous than Teesdale and the Wear IS a slightly smaller river than the Tees • but the physical obstacles to bridging are very similar in the two cases. The relative lack of crossing facilities in Teesdale is not due to any lack of demand for them. The difference is that Weardale is a political as well as a natural unit, for the administration of which one authority is responsible, while leesdale is divided between two adminis- trative counties. If we compare the crossing facilities for the whole length of each river the comparison is equally unfavourable to tne boundary river. In the lowland our boundary follows the watershed and thereby unites with the North Country an area south of the Tees, most ot which now forms the Croft Rural District. 1 his district IS also in the Registration County of Durham. It is in the Darlington market area and postal district, and its council con- ducts most of its business in Darhngton for obvious reasons of convenience. Hence for Its local government the area should be asso- PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 107 ciated with the rest of the Tees Valley rather than with the Vale of York. The industrial and urban area of Tees-side extends from Stockton through Middlesbrough to South Bank and has its residential suburbs spread round from Norton and Eaglescliffe to Redcar and Saltburn. This area spreads into two counties, but its economic and social unity and the fact that it is a part of the North-east Coast industrial region are too well recognized to need emphasizing here. Middlesbrough is, by rail, 42 miles from Newcastle and 67-^- from Leeds. The Tees- side district is closely connected with the populous area of Durham and Northumber- land ; but it is severed from that of the West Riding by the whole width of the thinly peopled area of the North Riding and the agricultural Vale of York, as well as by the different character of its principal industrial occupations. The voluntary associations of the district ignore the county boundary. We may mention the North York and South Durham Cricket League and the Cleveland and South Durham Association of Christian Endeavour Societies as examples. And the Tees Valley Water Board gives a practical illustration of the unity of the whole valley ; from its gathering grounds on the upper tributaries to the towns on the estuary it links together towns and hamlets, with due io8 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND regard to the physical and human unity of the valley and no reference to the county boundary which divides it. . This county boundary along the Tees gives a fair sample of the inconveniences which result from drawing such a dividing line along the centre of a valley. There are worse mstances, where the stream is smaller or the valley more densely peopled or both as on the Mersey between Lancashire and Q. « ?'u-*''^ ^°^'^ between Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the Tamar between Cornwall and Devon, the Blackwater between Hamp- shire and Surrey, and others. The Thames IS the only one of our larger English rivers which forms a county boundary for any considerable distance ; but in our days the County of London and the County Boroughs of Oxford and Reading have all extended across it by the growth, and subsequent incorporation, of suburbs on the opposite bank in all cases our provincial boundaries are so drawn as to include both sides of such a stream in one province, and so avoid all such difficulties as those we have referred to in the Tees Valley. The North Country Province includes two distinct areas of relatively dense population. 1 i^'f^"' f ' "f *° *^^ ^^^t °f the Pennines, on the Durham-Northumberland coalfield and Tees-side; it has more than two million PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 1O9 inhabitants. The second is on the Cumber- land coal and iron field, on the shore of the Irish Sea and the lowland north of the Cumbrian Mountains ; it contains a little more than a quarter of a million inhabitants. The whole of that part of the province which lies west of the Pennine crest contains only some 300,000 people. This region is thus not suffi- ciently populous to form a separate province, though it is more distinctly marked off by natural barriers than most of our provinces. The easiest route connecting it with other parts of England is that through the Tyne Gap eastward from Carlisle ; and Newcastle is by far the nearest of the great modern regional capitals. The distance from Carlisle to Newcastle is only two-thirds of that to Edinburgh or Preston and half that to Man- chester or Leeds (cf. figures on p. 116). A secondary link between the eastern and western lowlands of the North Country is formed by the road and railway across Stain- more Pass in the south of the province. These facts form a strong argument for associating this north-west corner of England with the north-east rather than with either Lancashire or Yorkshire. They indicate that the Cumbrian lowland and the northern slopes of its mountains are more accessible from the North-east Coast, and so could be more easUy and economically associated with that area. i-.i no PROVINCES OF ENGLAND This region is geographically a part of the P'o^ince'"^ ''^ "'* "' '''' Lancashire Outside the two areas of dense population in the rest of the North Country there is a lZ^^"^'':f^. '^^^^ 'P''^^ agricultural popu lation on the lowland in the Tees Valley somh . of the great coalfield, on the coastal plain o he north, and in the Eden Valley. Elsewhe the land is for the most part high and barren % r"Z '^^^^ P^^P^^^' but with a tongue T J^^ ?""' north-western counties of Cheshire l^^'^'^^^^^ and Cumberland have often been associated for some purposes, rhis groupmg seems to have originated ni most cases m London, and to be a result of viewmg the country from the capital : it i 2s?LTo?P'"^'^. ^y " ^^^^esponding north- ed Nofth^ consistmg of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland. These two groups of ZstTJv rr^^^ -spectively Lng the West and East Coast roads from the Endisli Lowland to Scotland ; and the arrLSe^^ tacitly assumes that these routes afe th dommant facts in the organization of this part of England. But in the North Country ii^ n.n'1 ""''' '"!!'" '^^"^gh ^he Tyne Gap ourwLT'i '^"\'^"* ^^^^ Cumberland southward to Lancashire : on the latter the PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND in railway rises to nearly a thousand feet above sea-level at Shap Summit, while between CarHsle and Newcastle it nowhere reaches half that altitude. For some other purposes the four northern counties are grouped to- gether, as in the association of specific areas with the universities by the Board of Agri- culture, in which these four counties are associated with the University of Durham (Armstrong College, Newcastle). As might be expected, the various divisions set up under the Defence of the Realm Act show examples of both groupings. All these official divisions necessarily employ existing county or district boundaries. And there is a strong tendency for voluntary organizations centred in London to do the same. For example, the Workers' Educational Association divides the country into large *' districts,' ' each of which consists of a group of counties. In the northern part of England it has three such districts : (i) North-eastern, including Durham and Northumberland. (2) North-western, including Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cum- berland. ^ (3) Yorkshire. But any branch may revolt against this arrangement and to some extent choose its iir nf 112 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND own associations. And it is, from our point of view, very interesting to note that the branches at Carhsle and Middlesbrough have each entered the North-eastern District, ^ in accordance with what we beHeve is the natural grouping, i.e. Middlesbrough finds itself in closer touch with the North-eastern District than with the West Riding, with Newcastle than with Leeds, and similarly Carlisle is more in touch with Newcastle than with Manchester. The extent to which a provincial capital can really be the focus of the province depends very largely on its accessibility from all parts. And this in turn depends on the distances and routes. For all places within a two hours' journey the capital can act effectively as the regional focus, since it is easily possible for any one to come in for a day at any time. In our provinces there is only one considerable area in England which is more than sixty miles distant from its provincial capital. This is the western extremity of the North Country and the northern part of the Lancashire Province, i.e. the Cumbrian coast plain together with most of the Lake District and Furness. No part of any province is as much as a hundred miles from its capital except a part of the Scilly Isles. The railway distances are in all TT/'rr^^/ ^.^"^ ^'^* ^^ Branches in each District in the W.t.A. Annual Report, July 1918. PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 113 cases greater than the straight-line distances. In the North Country the stations farthest from the capital are Berwick in the north (67 miles), Robin Hood's Bay in the south- east (85), and Sellafield in the extreme south- west (iii^). None of these are too remote to be brought within effective reach of the capital and its activities ; though these dis- tances are generally greater than those between corresponding places in the other provinces. Our North Country province includes the modern counties of Durham and Northum- berland, nearly the whole of Cumberland, the northern division of Westmorland, and the northern sections of the North Riding of York ; and it may be of interest to note here its relations to some older divisions of Britain. During the Early English Period its eastern section formed the central part of the Angle Kingdom of Northumbria ; while its western section was the southern part of British Strathclyde. And Carlisle first became English when it was taken by the Northum- brian Angles, acting through the Tyne Gap. During the Danish and Norse invasions most of the north-eastern half seems to have re- mained Angle territory. The settlements of the Danes in the Vale of York and of the Norsemen in Cumberland and Edendale, which were for a time united, along the roads over Stainmore Pass, in a Kingdom of York, cut 8 il I H, 114 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND off the northern Angles from those in the Midlands. After the Norman Conquest, and the cession of Cumbria by Malcolm of Scotland {c. 1091 A.D.), the greater part of the North Country was organized in three frontier marches, the earldoms of Carlisle and Northumberland and the palatine bishopric of Durham. The earl- dom of Carlisle included the northern part of Westmorland and most of modern Cumber- land. Most of modern Northumberland was divided between the earldom of that name and the bishopric ; the latter also included modern Durham. Cleveland and Richmond- shire, the north-west part of York, were not part of the Border Marches; but the latter, at least, was sufficiently near to, and on the route of, the '' border '' to share in its guerrilla warfare and general insecurity. The unity of the North Country, and hence its claim to be a distinct province, rests upon two groups of considerations, the one economic and the other traditional, both of which arise from its geographical position and relations. At the present day it contains over two and a half million people, a larger population than that of Wales, on rather more than half the area of that country, who are united to a very large extent by their contiguity and the similarity or interdependence of their chief occupations, and are set apart from the PROVINCE OF NORTH ENGLAND 115 rest of the nation by the position and separate- ness of the region they inhabit. And this population is so distributed that its local government xould most conveniently be organized in ' one province, with a natural capital in its chief city. The second ground is less definite. The area included in the province is historically the area controlled by the Lords of the Marches and the Prince Bishop of Durham ; and life in it was domin- ated for centuries by the border warfare with Scotland. That period greatly strengthened the marked unity and individuality of the North Country, a character which is strongly impressed on its regional traditions and folk- lore. For several centuries, while the rest of England was a peaceful agricultural country, this border region was its fighting frontier, a land of savage guerrilla warfare of mingled heroism and barbarity. In every ancient village there are traditions of the border raids. For long after the cessation of that warfare the then poor region of the north was an unimportant part of the realm, except for the fact that the road from England to Scotland passed through it for a hundred miles. It was too poor and barbarous to attract settlers from the more fertile lands to the south, and hence maintained its dis- tinctive character. But at the opening of the Industrial Period its wealth in readily ^ V 1 ii6 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND accessible coal and iron gave the North Country great advantages, which were ex- ploited to the full. The steam locomotive and the railway originated here, and so many other of the early mechanical inventions that Tyneside may well be termed the " Florence of the Industrial Renascence." And the region is well to the front in the present transi- tion from paleotechnic to neotechnic industry. The North Country traditions of independence and initiative have been carried on to our own days, and well support its claim to pro- vincial self-government. The following railway distances have a considerable bearing on some of the matters discussed in this chapter. Newcastle Berwick Carlisle Whitehaven Sellafield Middlesbrough Robin Hood's Bay m to Berwick y uttiae : to Edinburgh . . • • • • to Newcastle * * • • Edinburgh . . • • « Preston Manchester . . * • • • Leeds to Newcastle • • • • • • • • Manchester . . Leeds to Newcastle * • • • • • • Manchester . . Leeds to Newcastle • • • Leeds • • • to Middlesbrough * • • • • • Newcastle Leeds * • • * • • Miles. 67 57i 60J 9H 90 I20| II2| 1 00 1 132! Illj I2l| 127 42 67i 43 85 82I CHAPTER VII PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE A COMPARISON of the population and relief maps shows the densely peopled area of South Lancashire and Cheshire occupying the low- land, and the lower slopes of the Pennines, in a region which is clearly marked out by the Cumbrian Mountains and the Pennines to north and east and the Irish Sea to the west. To the south-west this region extends to the foot of the Welsh Upland ; and to the south it is continuous with the main area of the English Lowland, through the Midland Gate between the Welsh and Pennine Uplands. It is this distinctive region, the area drained to the Irish Sea between the Cumbrian and Cambrian Mountains, that we have marked off as the Lancashire Province. The northern boundary of this province has already been described as the western section of the southern boundary of the North Country. Its eastern boundary is drawn near the crest of the Pennines, along the main watershed of England, through country which 117 V ^ ii8 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND is uninhabited except where the depressions of the Aire Gap and the higher gaps west and south of Todmorden favour the meeting of the dense populations on the two slopes of this part of the upland. Leaving the North Country boundary at the head of Edendale, this line trends southward, crossing the railway barely a mile east of Hawes Junction and thence following the crest east of Ribblesdale and passing over Penyghent and between Settle and Malham to the Aire Gap. In this gap it crosses the Midland Railway about a mile east of Hellifield Junction and passes between the villages of Hellifield and Otterburn and Bracewell and Barnoldswick, to approach the existing county boundary about two miles south by west from the last-named town. It is thus drawn so as to leave the whole of the westward projection of Yorkshire, in Ribblesdale and the land west of it, to the Lancashire Province. For several miles southward from Barnoldswick the county boundary is near the waterparting ; and our provincial boundary follows It, except for the small variations required to leave each of the numerous reser- voirs and gathering grounds of this part of the Pennmes in the same province as the town It serves. In the gap between Burnley and Todmorden our boundary has been drawn half a mile west of the county line, so as to PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE 119 leave the suburbs of the latter town in York- shire and keep to the waterparting. On the moors north-east of Oldham the present countv line suddenly bends westward from the crest to include in the West Riding of York the Urban Districts of Saddleworth and Springhead. These lie in the upper valley of the Tame, a small tributary of the Irwell, at the western foot of Standedge, and reach the eastern edge of Oldham. Here our boundary line keeps to the crest, and passes over Standedge Tunnel, so cuttmg off this projection and leaving these eastern suburbs of Oldham to Lancashire. From here the line follows the watershed south-eastward over Woodhead Tunnel to Lady Cross, near the source of the Little Don River. There it bends sharply to the south-west and is drawn round the headwaters of the River Derwent to the summit of the Peak, and thence south- ward over Cowburn Tunnel and by Black Edge to the crest of Axe Edge, west of Buxton. It thus leaves to the Lancashire Province the north-west corner of Derbyshire, about Glossop, Chinley and Chapel-en-le-Frith, in the valleys of the Rivers Etherow and Goyt, an area which is in fact the south-eastern edge of the South Lancashire urban region, and for which Manchester is " town." Round about the headwaters of the Kiver Trent is the densely peopled area of the •20 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Potteries, which has its chief centre in Stoke nation stretIS:rover^Jhe^:Llh1r.oTe north and is continuous with that of South Lancashire and East Cheshire; whUe xt ^ Zr.^^^ Staffordshire by the thinly peonled moorlands in the centre -of that county ^Hence our provincial boundary in this neighbourhood IS drawn across the upper valleys of the Trent and some of its tributaries so as to eave the Potteries District in the Lancashire Province ward on the ridge ust east of Flash over Morndge Top and Merry ton Low between the valley of the River Churnet and DovelT waTin'the'?"'' V'' ^^^^^ Stafford rS' way m the dip m the ridge half a mile east of Ipstones Station. Thence it continues mts'TndThe' '^ ^'^ "'^^ '^^ ^^^^^oTr to cross th.R '' ri:^^" ^ ""^^ ^^^^ «f ^^"th From 1 ere if r^ ^^"'"'^ ^ "^"^ ^^ove Alton. distance of L !r '" *^" south-west at a aistance of some three miles from Cheadle ZTPi 'i? ^'^'^ Tean between Lower S of Leih SI. "'^'"^Jhan a mile north-west ot Leigh Station. Thence it is drawn west rrttaHT ''k 7""* *° Tittensor Common nearly half-way between Trentham and Stone. PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE 121 West of the Trent our line stretches west by north to the Maer Hills between Whitmore and Maer, and along those hills to a point between Madeley and Woore, where it reaches the northern watershed of the Severn River system. Thence the boundary follows this divide westward, passing just north of Woore and some two and a half miles north of Market Drayton. North-west of this town is a series of villages, Ightfield, Ash Parva and Ash Magna, and the market town of Whitchurch, all of which are on, or very close to, the divide. Hence the boundary is here drawn between the parks of Shavington and Cloverly, and thence to the south of the villages on the divide to reach the present Anglo-Welsh boundary west of Tilstock, near the south-east corner of the projecting detached part of Flint- shire. It is then continued westward along the divide, passing Breaden Heath, and about a mile north of Ellesmere, to reach our sug- gested Anglo- Welsh boundary, by St. Martin's Moor, to the east of Weston Rhyn, just south of the Ceiriog Valley. The Lancashire Province as thus delimited is a very distinct geographical unit. To the north and east it is enclosed by well-marked areas of separation which set it apart from the North Country and from the Yorkshire and Peakdon Provinces. These sections of its boundary lie almost wholly on high and 122 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND uninhabited moorlands, and cross populous strips only in a few valley routes through the uplands. The southern boundary is marked by no such definite dividing area It is drawn from the south-western spurs of the Pennines westward to Wales across an inhabited lowland. The eastern part of its course, across the upper Trent Valley is determined by the thinly peopled land south of the Potteries, the western by the divide between the streams of the Cheshire Plain and the northern tributaries of the River Severn. It is inevitably far more difficult to draw a satisfactory boundary in such country than on the Pennines ; but the line described satisfies the principles we have stated better than any other south boundary of Lancashire could do. The boundary in the south-west between this province and Wales, will be referred to later as part of the Anglo- Welsh boundary as a whole (see Chapter XVIII, p.216) The inhabitants of our Lancashire Province number more than six millions. The province IS second only to London in the numbers and density of its population ; it contains a third more people than Scotland, and nearly three times as many as Wales. This population is mainly concentrated in three densely crowded areas. The coalfield which lies at the western foot of the southern Pennines extends from the south side of the Ribble PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE 123 Valley to some distance south of the Mersey, approximately from Burnley to Macclesfield^ Except for small patches of land on the high moors of Rossendale Forest and in the marsh- land of the Mersey this area is almost con- tinuously urban. Its industrial life is mamly concerned with cotton manufacture and its subsidiary occupations and is focused on its central city of Manchester. Together with Salford and its immediate suburbs this city has a population of about a million ; and at least half the population of the province lives within twenty miles of Manchester Town Hall on an area over which the average density of population is nearly four thousand to the square mile. From this main area of dense population two secondary areas branch out. The first stretches westward to the mouth of the Mersey Estuary, where it expands into the densely crowded mass of the port of Lancashire, Liverpool and its sateUite towns. These in- clude a little more than one million people. Measured by the number within the city boundaries, Liverpool seems a somewhat larger city than Manchester ; but it is the city focus for a population less than half as numerous as that centring on the latter city. The second tongue of dense population extends southwards from the main area along the western foot of the Pennines to include the 1 124 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Potteries District. It occupies an area some twenty miles m length and half that in breadth and mcludes about a million people Its largest town is Stoke-on-Trent, with rather more than a quarter of a million inhabitants 1 his distribution of the more populous areas justihes us in marking Manchester as the capital of the Province of Lancashire, and also m including the Potteries in that province since It IS more closely and directly associated with the Manchester area than with any other corresponding regional capital. The three areas just referred to, which centre on, or radiate from, the Manchester nucleus, contain about five-sixths of the inhabi- tants of the province. The few considerable towns outside them are either denser knots m the fringe of seaside suburbs of the main urban area, like Southport and Blackpool, or specialized industrial towns such as Crewe and Barrow-in-Furness. The ancient city of Chester has also become an important railway centre and gathered to itself nearly forty thousand inhabitants ; it is thus of the same order of magnitude as the four towns just mentioned. Besides the urban and industrial districts to which we have referred, there is a well-peopled agricultural area on the plain which stretches along the western half of the province from the southern boundary to More- cambe Bay. Here agriculture, or more often PROVINCE OF LANCASHIRE 125 horticulture, is prosperous because of the near neighbourhood of vast markets, in spite of a not very favourable climate and soil. Here the density of population is also increased by some overflow from the industrial areas. The part of the province north of the lower Ribble, with the exception of the Fylde peninsula, is mainly composed of high and barren moor- land, and has only a very scanty population in its more fertile valleys. Probably not more than a twentieth of the inhabitants of the province dwell north of the valley of the Ribble. The whole of the populous areas of this Lancashire Province are within a radius of thirty-five miles from Manchester Town Hall. But in the north-west there is a considerable area which is more than sixty miles from the capital. Barrow-in-Furness and Kendal are just sixty miles away as the crow flies, though Barrow is more than eighty miles distant by rail, and there is only a very small popu- lation outside the sixty- mile radius. But at the extreme north-west corner Seascale Station is 119 miles from Manchester by rail : this station is further from the capital of its province than any other in England. At the time of the Domesday Survey (c. 1085 A.D.) the county of Lancashire did not exist. The northern part of our Lanca- shire Province was then the western part of 126 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Yorkshire ; while most of that part to the south of the Ribble, together with FHntshire, made up the earldom of Chester. Historically the area of this province has never formed a unit ; and its modern unity is mainly the result of two principal factors. First, the physical unity of the region and its distinctness from other regions, which have favoured the develop- ment of ''Lancashire'' traditions and dialect and a provincial individuality. And second, the economic unity due to the fact that its principal industry of cotton manufacture is dominant here and comparatively insignificant anywhere else in England. The capital of Lan- cashire is '' Cottonopohs." Lancashire resem- bles the North Country in that its importance in England dates mainly from the Industrial Revolution. Before that time it was one of the poorest and least populous and impor- tant areas. The real unity of its people is expressed in all the complex of sentiment and thought that goes to make up the typical Lancashireman. Here local patriotism is already strong ; and it has developed a pubhc opinion which makes this province quite as ripe for self-government as Scotland or Wales. CHAPTER VHI PROVINCE OF PEAKDON Along the eastern foot of the central and southern Pennines is the largest coalfield of Britain ; and on it there is a dense mining and industrial population comparable to those on the western side of the upland and in Durham-Northumberland. In this case, how- ever, the coal is worked over most of a long and relatively narrow belt of country, which extends for sixty miles from the Aire to the Trent, but is only twenty miles in width at its northern end, and thence tapers irregu- larly to less than ten miles at its southern end. In form, the populous area on this coalfield is in three lobes, northern, central and southern; and this prevents it from being focused on any one nodal town. The northern lobe includes twice as many people as either of the other two, each of which has about a miUion inhabitants. There is here a total population not very much less than that on the Lancashire coalfield; but instead of one regional capital comparable to Manchester 127 128 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND there are three, Leeds in the northern, Sheffield in the central, and Nottingham in a nodal position on the edge of the southern section The populations which are respectively focused on these three regional capitals are not separated from each other by any distinct physical barriers, and only by slightly less populous strips of country in the contractions of the densely peopled belt into its three lobes; but they differ sufficiently in their principal industries, and the resulting modes of hfe, and in their relation to different nodal cities, to justify the organization of each into a distinct province. The northern and southern capitals of Leeds and Nottingham extend their influence far beyond this belt of country, in the valleys of the Yorkshire rivers and the Trent respectively ; the central one, Sheffield, has a more contracted sphere of influence between the other two— and this is the province with which we are now con- cerned. Nearly the whole of this province is made up of two distinct areas. The eastern section is occupied by the drainage-area of the River Don, including the valleys of its chief tribu- taries, the Dearne and the Rother. And the western section includes most of the High Peak District. These two areas are separated from each other by a narrow strip of almost uninhabited moorland on the ridge between PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 129 the drainage areas of the Rivers Don and Derwent ; but for all the western area Sheffield is the regional capital. Its principal roads converge on that city ; the railway connects it with Sheffield through the Totley Tunnel ; and for most of it Sheffield is the postal town.' Because it is mainly made up of the High Peak District and the Don Valley we have here called this the Peakdon Province. The western boundary of this province coincides with the eastern boundary of the Lancashire Province on the main divide of England, from north of Woodhead to Axe Edge, a direct distance of a little more than twenty miles. This line crosses the two direct railways between Sheffield and Manchester over Woodhead Tunnel (G.C.R.) and Cowburn Tunnel (M.R.), respectively, in each case approximately half-way between the two cities. It lies on unpeopled moorlands except in the high gap south-east of Chapel-en-le-Frith, where it crosses the thinly peopled pastoral and quarrying area of Peak Forest. The southern boundary starts from Axe Edge some three miles south-west of Buxton, and is drawn south-eastward on the high ground between the Wye Valley and Dove- dale, passing between the villages of Monyash I For some details of this relationship, see article on " Edale : A Study of a Pennine Dale " by the writer, in the Scottish Geographical Magazine for January 1917. 9 I30 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND and Longnor, Youlgreave and Hartington, to a point about three miles west of the hamlet of Aldwark. This stretch of the boundary is on a plateau surface similar to that about Peak Forest ; and it is nowhere very far from the Buxton and High Peak branch of the L. and N.W.R., a mineral Hne which serves the quarries of the neighbourhood. Near Aldwark the boundary turns to the east and passes along the minor divide north of the Via GelHa, to the gorge of the Derwent at Matlock. It crosses this gorge just south of the High Tor, between Matlock and Matlock Bath, where the valley is narrowest and the strip of populous agricultural land in it is broken. Thence it stretches directly eastward for some three miles, on the ridge south of the Tansley Brook, to a point about a mile south-east of Tansley village. Here our boundary bends sharply to the north-west to curve round the headwaters of the little River Amber and leave its valley to the Trent Province. This valley-head is mainly occupied by the parish of Ashover, a manu- facturing village whose industries of lace and hosiery associate it with Nottingham rather than with Sheffield. Three miles east of Ash- over is Clay Cross, a small manufacturing town of recent growth, situated astride the waterparting between the Don and Trent river systems, in the long north-south valley PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 131 which has been worn out in the coal measures between the Pennines and the edge of the magnesian limestone to the east of them. North of Clay Cross this valley is drained >y the Rother and south by the Amber. In Clay Cross itself, the church is on the southward slope, while the principal works and the railway station are in the valley of the Rother. The town is chiefly concerned with coal and iron-working, and is on the whole more associated with Sheffield than with the Trent Province ; hence our boundary is drawn south of it. The Hne passes between the hamlet of Alton and Ashover village, and then just to the south of Clay Cross, between that town and Stretton, and round the head of the Rother Valley between Pilsley and Tibshelf ; thence it turns to the north through the east of Hardwick Park, leaving the small Nottinghamshire hamlet of Stanley in Peakdon. This southern boundary of the province is for the greater part of its length drawn along a thinly peopled area of separation between the more populous districts to north and south of it. And it crosses the Derwent at the gorge which is the natural break between the upper and lower sections of its valley. But in its last section, east of Ashover, the line crosses the belt of the coal measures and its band of dense population. It comes to this area in the contraction between the 132 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND southern and central expansions of that band ; but any Hne drawn across such an area must be open to criticism in relation to our prin- ciples. This one has the advantages over any other (i) of passing through the least populous parts of the area ; (2) of keeping near to the watershed and so minimizing complications in regard to the water supply, which is necessarily a difficult matter in such a district ; and (3) of lying very nearly half- way between the provincial capitals. Most of the eastern boundary of this Pro- vince of Peakdon lies on the high ground between the valley of the Rother and Don and the lower part of the Vale of Trent. This is composed of two parallel bands of rock. The eastern band is the northern half of a low plateau, from one hundred to three hundred feet above sea-level, on the outcrop of the bunter sandstone. This plateau of Sherwood Forest is an elongated oval, ex- tending over some thirty miles from near Nottingham to a little south-east of Doncaster, with a mean width of about eight miles. It is a district of poor soil and scanty population, containing no centre of population larger than such considerable villages as Edwinstowe and OUerton. The market towns of Worksop and Mansfield lie just oft its western edge, and East Retford marks its eastern limit. It is trenched by a series of transverse valleys in PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 133 which small streams flow across it from west to east. The western band of high ground is on the outcrop of the magnesian Umestone ; it is a plateau akin to that of Sherwood, but with half the width from west to east and at twice the altitude above sea-level. It has on the whole a more fertile soil, but in modern times its much denser population is mamly a result of the fact that the coal is easily reached from shafts sunk through the mag- nesian rock, as in East Durham, and hence it is a part of the coalfield. The waterpartmg lies generally nearer to the western than to the eastern edge of this narrow plateau ; but the valleys are all small ; and the distri- bution of the population has led us to draw the boundary nearer to the eastern edge, not far from the north-western boundary of Notting- hamshire. In this area it is conceivable that a further eastward extension of the working of the hidden coalfield might produce a corresponding change in the distribution and economic relations of the population, and so justify a corresponding eastward shift of the boundary of the province. From Hardwick Park our eastern boundary is drawn northward between the hamlets of Ault Hucknall and Rowthorn and east of Glapwell. Thence it passes between Bolsover and Scarcliffe, over the long tunnel in which the Great Central Railway here passes through 134 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND the ridge, to the neighbourhood of Clowne. This is a large coUiery village situated, like Clay Cross, actually astride of the water- parting in a shallow col in which the ridge is crossed by two roads and railways. Our line is here bent to the east, so as to leave the Rural District of Clowne, with its four large mining villages of Barlborough, Clowne, Elmton and Whitwell, in the Peakdon Province! Thence it continues northward along the eastern edge of the coal-mining district and west of Sherwood, between the row of colliery villages, Harthill, South and North Anston, Dinnington, Laughton - en - le - Morthen, and Maltby, to the west, and the agricultural districts about the market towns of Worksop and Bawtry to the east, to a point nearly half-way between Wadworth and Tickhill. From here the boundary bends sharply east- ward to circle round Doncaster and its suburbs. This town is on the Don just where that river comes out from the higher ground, and its valley merges into the low and level land of the Humberhead marshes, an area which is mostly less than twenty-five feet above the sea and very closely resembles the Fenland. The boundary continues eastward to the Great North Road about two miles north of Bawtry, , the small market town which has the distinction of having its church in one county (Notts) and its market place in another PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 135 (York West Riding). On crossing the North Road our line bends northward, cutting off the projecting tongue of Yorkshire which reaches into Bawtry, and passes between the hamlets of Auckley and Blaxton, and thence along the marshes east of Armthorpe to reach the river a mile above Barnby-on-Don. The northern boundary of this provmce has the same general character as the eastern part of its southern boundary. It stretches across the West Riding, from the crest of the Pennines to the lower course of the Don, in an area which is only slightly less densely peopled than those on each side of it. This line generally keeps to the divide between the tributaries of the Don and those of the Calder ; it marks approximately the transition from the iron-working district which centres on Sheffield to the woollen manufacturing district of which Leeds is the focus, and it is for most of its length almost equidistant from those two provincial capitals. From the Lancashire boundary two miles north of Woodhead the line is drawn north- eastward along the crest of the spur which separates the upper Don Valley from that of the small River Holme, between the Pern- stone and Holmfirth districts. Thence it turns northward west of Skelmanthorpe, round the headwaters of the River Dearne, to curve west and north of the large village of Flockton. 136 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The villages of vSkelmanthorpe and Clayton at the head of the Dearne have no direct railway connection with the towns further down that river, but this could easily be sup- pHed by an extension of the line to Clayton for three miles further down the valley to join the existing line. Both ends of this link belong to the same company. Flockton lies some six miles north-west of Barnsley, the northern- most of the important towns of the Sheffield iron- working district, and about the same distance east-south-east of Huddersfield, the southernmost town of the woollen manu- facturing district of the West Riding. From here the boundary keeps to the northern watershed of the Dearne Valley and trends eastward, passing just north of West Bretton and west of Woolley, and thence between Royston and Notton to the dip in the dividing ridge through which the Aire and Calder Canal passes. Thence the line stretches eastward on a low ridge, passing a little north of Hems- worth and Upton to the end of the ridge two miles west of Campsall. Here it bends south- eastwards and passes directly across the marsh- land to meet the eastern boundary on the River Don. The Province of Peakdon, within the bound- aries just described, is the smallest in area but not the least populous of our provinces. Tt contains nearly one and a quarter millions PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 137 of people, a population which is considerably more than half that of Wales, on less than one-eighth of the area of that country ; and \U ranks ninth among our twelve provinces of England in this respect. In the order of density of population this province ranks third ; it is exceeded only by the London and Lancashire provinces, and has more than twice the density of the Yorkshire Province, which comes next to it (see Fig. 13, p. 226), and twice the average density for the whole country. More than a third of its inhabitants live within the City of Sheffield. Its other important towns are Chesterfield, Rotherham, Doncaster and Bamsley, all on the coalfield in the drainage-area of the Don. The western part of the province, the High Peak District, drained by the Derwent, contains only a twentieth of its population. The whole of the province is within a radius of twenty-five miles from Sheffield ; and all but the south- western corner has easy direct railway com- munication with that city. In the south-west, however, the Wye Valley and the part of the Derwent Valley* from Rowsley to Matlock is served by the Derby and Manchester Branch of the Midland Railway, which is connected with direct lines to Sheffield only outside the province at Ambergate and Chinley Junc- tions. This valley could easily be brought into direct connection with Sheffield by the 138 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND construction of a linking line, some six or seven miles in length, from the west end of the Totley Tunnel to near Hassop, a Httle north of Bakewell, the market town of the Wye Valley. There are no special physical diflficulties in the way of this branch, and the hues it would connect belong to the same company. It would be a useful link in the railway system of the country ; and it would shorten the railway journey from Sheffield to Matlock or Buxton, and to all the stations between them. In this part of the province we have two towns, Buxton and Matlock, not more than a mile from the boundary. Usually we have been able to define our provincial boundaries so that no important town lies close to them. But in the case of health and pleasure resorts such as these, the position of such a boundary is of much less importance. They draw their support from the whole of the country, not from a limited area in the near neighbourhood as a local market town does. And in the suggested reconstruction of our major local government areas it is more important to obtain good boundaries in relation to indus- trial and agricultural areas than in relation to residential districts which are of less direct economic importance. The unity of our Peakdon Province is entirely a modern growth. Its area was PROVINCE OF PEAKDON 139 almost equally divided between the Ancient Counties of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It is only since the beginning of the Industrial Age in the eighteenth century that Sheffield has become an important town ; and the unity of the province is due to the predomin- ance of one chief type of industry, iron and steel working, in the whole of its populous area, and the focusing of the whole province on its capital of Sheffield. ll' Chapter ix PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE The Ancient County of York is by far the largest of English counties : so much so that even after its modern division into three administrative counties one of these, the West Riding, ranks first, and another, the North Riding, third in area among our modern counties. The West Riding includes less than half of the surface of the Ancient County of York ; but it occupies a greater area than that of any other Ancient County ; while the smallest of the three divisions, the East Riding, is considerably larger than the majority of those counties. There were six of the Ancient Counties each of which occupied more than two thousand square miles of land, an area almost three times as great as that of an average Midland county such as Oxford or Warwick. These were Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire (before the creation of Lancashire in 1377 a.d.), Lincoln, Devon and Norfolk. The great size of some of these shires is probably due largely 140 PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE 141 to their remoteness from London and the less thorough organization of the territory from the capital, which was partly a result of the greater distance. The division of Mercia into shires on its reconquest from the Danes extended only as far to the north as the southern borders 'of Cheshire and Yorkshire. These districts submitted to the overlordship of the English kings at that time ; but they do not seem to have been effectively incorpor- ated into the Kingdom of England for some centuries later. Hence the area of the Angle Kingdom of Deira (the southern part of Northumbria) and its successor, the Danish Kingdom of York, was not divided into shires like that of Mercia to the south of it. The use in parts of Yorkshire of district names to denote areas which are comparable to those of the Midland shires may be sugges- tive of some attempt at such a division. The chief names of this kind which are still in use to some extent are those of the outlying marginal districts of Craven, Cleveland, Holderness and Hallamshire. Our delimita- tion of provincial boundaries has allotted most of Craven to the Lancashire Province, Cleveland to the North Country and Hallam- shire to Peakdon ; so leaving the main body of the ancient county and its eastern districts to form our Yorkshire. This province thus consists of the Vale of York, the valleys -,r 13 142 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND sloping to that vale from the Pennines, and the land between it and the North Sea from the North York Moors to the Humber, including the Vale of Pickering, the York Wolds and Holderness. In both area and population it is somewhat larger than the average of our twelve English Provinces. Nearly the whole of the land boundary of this Province of Yorkshire has already been described in relation to those provinces which border it on the north, west and south-west. The remainder is only some fourteen or fifteen miles in length from the north-east border of Peakdon to the Humber Estuary. This fine, which marks off our Yorkshire from the Trent Province, lies entirely in the marshland aboul the head of the Humber. It leaves the boundary of Peakdon almost due east of Don- caster, and thence bends to the North, between the higher ground about Hatfield and the Isle of Axholme, over Hatfield Moor. North of this marsh it stretches between Thorne and Crowle over Thorne Moor, and thence passes directly to the Humber two miles below Goole. Except on the banks of the Humber this line does not pass close to an\ village, and most of the land near it is very thinly peopled. In this respect it is a great contrast to the county boundary between the V^est Riding and Lindsey, which is so drawn as to pass along the streets of all four PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE 143 of the villages north-east of Crowle, namely, Adlingfleet, Garthorpe and Fockerby, Ludding- ton and Eastoft. The population of this Yorkshire Province is nearly two and three-quarter millions, which is made up of two-thirds of the inhabi- tants of the West Riding (the rest, nearly one million, being in the Peakdon Province), rather more than one-third of those of the North Riding, and the whole of those of the East Riding and the City of York. Within the province there is one area of dense industrial and urban population. This is in the south- west corner, in the vallej^s of the Aire and Calder ; and it contains about two-thirds of the total population. About a third of the remainder is in the city of Kingston-upon- Hull. The rest of the population of the pro- vince is largely agricultural ; it is spread fairly evenly over the three lowland districts of Holderness and the Vales of York and Picker- ing. The other parts of the province, the eastward slopes of the Pennines in the north- west, the York Wolds, and the southward slopes of the North York Moors, are very thinly peopled. The Vale of York is the largest of the populous areas. It extends through the pro- vince along the Ouse Valley for about sixty miles from north to south, with a mean width of nearly thirty miles from west to east, end- 144 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND ing northward in the contraction of the low- land in the Northallerton Gate, which connects it with the North Country, and southward in the corresponding contraction between the head of the Humber and the eastern foot of the Pennines. This southern gate was in earlier times occupied by undrained fens ; and the main road from the south enters Yorkshire along its western edge, through Doncaster, Pontefract and Castleford. This road, the Great North Road from London to Edinburgh, keeps to the western edge of the lowlying floodland of the Ouse, passing ten miles west of York, to leave the province just north of Scotch Corner in the western part of the Northallerton Gate. The main railway line, i.e. the corresponding modern road, keeps nearer to the centre of the vale, through Doncaster, Selby, York and Northaller- ton. This Vale of York is the central section of the East Coast Route from London to Scotland ; and it is thus connected directly with the regions to south and north of it. But it is quite distinctly marked off to north and south ; while to the south-west and north- east it is continuous with two of the other three populous areas of the Yorkshire Province. Only the fourth, Holderness in the south-east, is separated from the rest by any distinct barrier, the low and thinly peopled Wolds. The six largest towns in the province, with PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE 145 their populations at the 191 1 census, are Leeds (445,500), Bradford (288,458), Hull (277,991), Huddersfield (107,821), Halifax (ioi>553); ai^d York (82,282). Four of these, the first, second, fourth and fifth, are parts of the West Riding conurbation. The third in size, Hull, is the eastward seaport of the industrial districts about the southern Pennines. Its economic hinderland includes those districts and a large part of the Midlands ; while its relations to the East Riding, in which it is situated, are of less importance to it. To the agricultural population of Holderness, Hull is important chiefly as a large and accessible market for much of its produce, and a busy town which drains off many of the people. The city is situated on an island of firm ground in the marshland, and is closely surrounded by an area of very thin population. Round no other large town in England is the transi- tion from urban to rural grouping of the people so sharply marked. The rest of the population of Holderness is settled along the foot of the Wolds, and focused on its market towns of Beverley and Driffield, or near the coast. Although Hull contains more than half the population of the East Riding, it is em- phatically not a regional capital. The regional focus of the province is Leeds, the chief node of the conurbation which contains nearly two- thirds of its population. 10 146 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The ancient city of York gave its name to the shire, and was the county town before its division into three modern counties. It is still the seat of the Assizes for the East and North Ridings ; but the West Riding has its own Assizes, held at Leeds ; while the county offices for the three Ridings are situated at Beverley, Northallerton and Wakefield respec- tively. There is not, at present, any recog- nized capital of Yorkshire. Hence for the capital of our Yorkshire Province the choice is only between Leeds and York. The latter city has the advantages of being nearer to the areal centre of the province and of two thousand years' standing as the chief city of the region. Leeds is the immediate focus of a population at least ten times as numerous as that focused on York, and it is almost the population centre of the province. It is also the seat of the university and of the press, and the chief commercial, financial and social centre. Hence, in a distribution which aims at marking out provinces in relation to the present distri- bution of the population, Leeds is necessarily marked as the capital of the Yorkshire Province. The whole of the province is readily accessible from Leeds. Only two small areas lie outside the sixty-mile radius from that city. One of these is the eastward projection of Flam- borough Head, east of Bridlington, and the PROVINCE OF YORKSHIRE 147 other the south-eastern corner of Holderness, beyond Hedon to Spurn Head. Withernsea, in the latter area, is the only town in the province which is more than sixty miles from Leeds in a direct line. >fi CHAPTER X THE SEVERN PROVINCE The north-western part of the Enghsh Mid- lands, between the southern Hmits of the Lancashire, Peakdon and Yorkshire Provinces to the north and a Hne drawn across the Fen- land from the western corner of the Wash to the Northampton Heights, and thence along the Edge to the Cotswolds and westward across the lower Severn, is here divided into two provinces. These are spoken of as the Severn and Trent Provinces, each being named after the river which is its chief physical feature. In these provinces the areas of densest popula- tion are on and near to the coalfields. And here the coalfields are chiefly associated with relatively high ground. Hence we find the largest area of dense population, in the *' Black Country " about Birmingham, astride of the main watershed. Similarly the " Potteries " district stretches across the divide at the head of the Trent Valley, while the densely peopled areas around Charnwood Forest and the Wrekin are also on watersheds between lesser 148 THE SEVERN PROVINCE 149 valleys. Under these conditions the boundaries of our Severn, or West Midland, Province cannot for the most part be drawn on main watersheds. In marking them out the distri- bution of population has been the deciding factor ; and they cross the valleys to a consider- able extent. The northern boundary between the Severn Valley and the Cheshire Plain follows the divide ; and that to the south- east between this and the Central Province is on the main watershed of England, between tributaries of the Severn and streams which flow to the Wash or the Thames. But to the north-east, between the Severn and Trent Provinces, to the south, between this and the Bristol Province, and along the edge of the Welsh Upland to the west, our boundaries cut across main valle3^s, and in some places also across smaller valleys. Many minor depar- tures from watershed boundaries are also caused by the fact that in the English Lowland it is quite common to find a considerable village actually on the divide, a site not often occupied by towns or villages in the northern half of the country. In the absence of any well-marked areas of separation such as those between the northern provinces, it is only possible to define these boundaries with suffi- cient precision for clear discussion by reference to minor physical features and to villages between which they pass. 150 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Our Severn Province includes the greater part of the drainage area of the River Severn, which occupies three- fourths of its extent, from the boundary of the Welsh Province to the head of the Stratford Avon, and from the river-flats south of Tewkesbury to the northern watershed. It also includes to the north-east of this area a considerable part of the upper basin of the Trent, an extension determined by the fact that the dense popula- tion of the Birmingham district extends into the drainage area of that river. This area is hmited approximately by a line drawn from the headwaters of the Stratford Avon north-westward to the neighbourhood of the Potteries. The northern boundary has already been discussed in detail as the southern boundary of the Lancashire Province. The north-eastern boundary in its first section, from that of Lan- cashire to the River Trent, lies on the high ground of Needwood Forest, which is, for the most part, a thinly peopled area. It starts near Bhthewood Moat, about two miles west of the River Tean and half a mile west of the Stoke to Derby line of the North Stafford Railway. Thence it stretches directh' south-eastward to the crest of Painley Hill, whence it keeps to the divide between the Rivers Blithe and Dove, passing some three miles south of Uttoxeter, and between the THE SEVERN PROVINCE 151 villages of Newborough and Draycott-in-the- Clay, to Needwood. There it turns south- ward just west of Rangemore, and passes between Yoxall and Barton-under-Needwood, to reach the Trent marshes east of Wichnor and the river itself just to the west of Wichnor Bridges. In its next section the Hne passes between the densely peopled areas on the Leicestershire coalfields and that about Atherstone and Nuneaton, on the coalfield of East \Varwick- shire. Across the floodland of the Trent it follows a meander of the river to reach the opposite side of the valley a mile below the confluence of the Tame, where it meets the Derby-Stafford county boundary. It follows this boundary south-eastward for some two miles till the county line bends abruptly to the south. Here our boundary continues south-eastward round Lullington and between Clifton Campville and Chilcote to the higher ground east of the valley of the River Anker, On this it passes between Austrey and Norton- juxta-Twy cross and between Orton and Twycross, and reaches the small River Sence, which flows from Charnwood to the Anker, near Harris Bridge, between Sheepy Magna and Congerstone. Thence the hne bends south- ward between Sheepy Parva and Sibson, and again south-eastward between Atterton and Upton, to reach the neighbourhood of the 152 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND small coalfield about Hinckley, a mile north of Higham-on-the-Hill. Hinckley itself is on the divide between the tributaries of the Rivers Anker and Soar. Here the boundary is drawn west of this populous area so as to leave it to the Trent Province, with which it has closer economic and historic associations than it has with the Birmingham district. The line is drawn to the west of Higham and southward between Nun- eaton and Hinckley, and thence again south- eastward between Burton Hastings and Bur- bage, and between Wolvey and Copston Magna to cross the Fosse Way on the high ground (460 feet) a mile and a half south-west of High Cross, where that road crosses Watling Street. Here our boundary reaches the main divide which forms the eastern edge of the Severn River system, and for the rest of the eastern and south-eastern boundary of the province it lies close to this waterparting. At this eastern corner of the Severn Province the boundary circles round the headwaters of the Stratford Avon. It passes south of the hamlet of Willey and turns eastward to cross Watling Street, and the Warwick-Leicester county line, half a mile north of Cross-in-Hand. Thence it lies on the northern and eastern edge of the valley of which Lutterworth is the market town : it passes just to the north of Gilmorton, to turn southwards above the THE SEVERN PROVINCE 153 source of the River Swift some two miles east of Walton. Thence it is drawn southward to cross the railway and the Grand Union Canal over the tunnel west of Husbands Bosworth ; and south of that village it again bends south-eastward to reach the crest of the Northampton Heights half a mile south of Sibbertoft, where the watersheds of the Rivers Avon, Welland and Ise (tributary of the Nen) meet. This is also the meeting-point of our three Midland provinces, Severn, Trent and Central, and from here the boundary of the Severn Province stretches south-west- wards along the " Edge/' From Sibbertoft the boundary stretches southward for three miles to the high ground about Naseby, and passes just east and south of that village, which is thus at the eastern extremity of the Severn Province. Thence it is drawn along the divide, just to the north of Cold Ashby, between Winwick and West Haddon, and thence south of Crick, Kilsby and Barby, where the ridge is tunnelled by the Grand Union Canal and the L. and N.W.R. South of Barby the line passes between Braunston and Welt on, west of Daventry and between Staverton and Badby to Arburj^ Hill. Here it bends westwards round the headwaters of the River Cherwell, across the G.C.R. tunnel between Hellidon and Charwel- ton, north of Priors Marston, and southwards 154 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND between Wormleighton and Upper Boddington. For the next ten or twelve miles its course is very direct, along the crest of the scarp of which Edge Hill is the central portion. Beyond this the Edge is interrupted by the Vale of Red Horse, in which the Warwickshire River Stour has cut far back into the Cots- wold Upland. Here our boundary bends to the south round this vale. It turns southward on the crest south-east of Compton Wyniates and extends to Tadmarton Heath in an almost straight line for some five miles. Thence it is drawn westwards along the divide, passing between Whichford and Hook Norton, south of Long Compton and Barton-on-the-Heath, a mile north of Moreton-in-the-Marsh, where the ridge sinks to a col traversed by the Fosse Way and a branch of the G.W.R., and between Blockley and Bourton-on-the-Hill to the crest of the Cotswolds above Broadway. From here the boundary follows this crest south- ward, crossing the col at the head of the Isbourne Valley south of Winchcomb. A mile south-west of this point the main crest becomes the boundary between the Bristol and Central Provinces, and the southern boundary of the Severn Province leaves the Cotswolds along the spur north of Cheltenham, on the summit of Cleeve Common, and reaches the lowland by way of Nottingham Hill. The southern boundary is drawn on the THE SEVERN PROVINCE 155 thinly peopled marshlands of the lower Severn so as to lie between the well-peopled agricul- tural vales of Evesham and Worcester and the Hereford Basin to the north and the populous areas about Cheltenham, Gloucester and the Forest of Dean coalfield to the south. Hence it crosses the valleys of the Severn and Wye and several smaller streams. From Nottingham Hill it is drawn westward between Gotherington and Bishop's Cleeve to reach the Severn a mile south of Haw Bridge. Thence it stretches directly across the marshland to Barrow Hill south of Hasfield and westward by Corse Wood Hill to reach the River Leadon south of Staunton, on the Worcester-Gloucester countj^ boundary. Thence our line coincides with the county boundary for a mile and a half up the Leadon to the higher ground south of Pauntley. Here it strikes westward along the secondary divide between the Upper Leadon and the Ell Brook, passing between Dymock and Newent, and between Kempley and Upton Bishop to reach the River Wye at the eastern end of the big sunken meander north of Ross. Across the Wye Valley our boundary is drawn along the southern arm of this meander to its western end. Thence it follows a minor ridge westward to the north-east end of the ridge of Orcop Hill south of Brangwyn. From here the line is drawn south-westward along that ridge to Garway Hill and then directly 156 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND across the River Monnow to its continuation in the higher ridge of Graig Serrerthin, on the southern summit of which, at an altitude of 1,389 feet, it meets the suggested Anglo-Welsh borderUne. From here the boundary between our Severn Province and Wales stretches westward along Camptson Hill to cross the valley of the Monnow again south of Pandy ; and thence it is drawn north-westward alone the well-defined ridge of the eastern edge of the Black Mountains between the Olchon Valley and the Vale of Ewya. The rest of the western boundary of this province will be discussed in Chapter XVIII as part of the Anglo-Welsh boundary line. This Severn Province, within the boundaries just described, contains more than two and three-quarter miUion inhabitants. Of this population the city of Birmingham and its immediate suburbs account for nearly a third, while another third is found in the densely peopled industrial area to the north, west and south of Birmingham, within twenty miles of that city. The second area of dense popula- tion is also within twenty miles of Birmingham, in a narrow band stretching from Coventry by Nuneaton and Atherstone to Tamworth, which is separated from the main populous area only by an agricultural area in the upper part of the Tame Valley. There is still a third area of dense population on the coalfield near THE SEVERN PROVINCE 157 the Wrekin, from Coalbrookdale to Welling- ton. This relatively small area is some thirty miles from Birmingham. In the rest of the province the valleys are usually occupied by a fairly dense agricultural population, except where the bottoms are very marshy, as in the Trent Valley near the junction of the Tame, the Severn Valley near to and below the confluence of the Avon, in each case on the boundaries of the province, and above the Wrekin gorge. The chief areas of agricultural importance are in three bands round the triangular area of dense industrial population about Birmingham, to the south-east along the valley of the Avon from Evesham to Rugby, to the w^est along the Severn from south of Worcester to the Wrekin, and to the north-east in the upper Trent Valley from Lichfield to Stafford. All three find the chief market for their produce in the central indus- trial district. All the populous areas so far mentioned are within a circle of radius thirty-five miles whose centre is Birmingham Town Hall ; and the population within this circle is not less than nine-tenths of that of the whole province. There are beyond, this radius from the capital only two fairly populous areas, one in the south-west corner of the province in the Here- ford Basin, and one in the north-west corner near the Welsh border north of the Severn. The 158 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND rest of the province consists of thinly peopled uplands. The mean density of population is almost the same as that for the whole country. Of the many considerable towns of this Severn Province, only Shrewsbury, Hereford and Oswestry are more than thirty miles from the capital ; and no part of the province is sixty miles distant from Birmingham in a direct line. The pre-eminence of Birmingham as a railway centre has also ensured that every part of the province has relatively easy and direct railway coimections with the capital. The one exception to this is found in the Vale of Red Horse in the Cotswolds, where the only direct connection between Shipston-on-Stour and the rest of the province is the disused line to Stratford-on-Avon. The unity of this Severn Province is essen- tially a modern fact due to the development of Birmingham as a regional capital of the first rank. It coincides approximately with the area often spoken of as the West Midlands, which again, as a distinctive region, has only become conscious of its unity within the last hundred years. The only historic unit which occupied approximately the^ same area as this province was the short-lived English Mercia of the period during which Mercia was for a few years divided between West Saxons and Danes in the ninth and tenth centuries. But it is significant evidence of the real unity THE SEVERN PROVINCE 159 of the region to-day that it has maintained its identity, qis the West Midland Division, throughout nearly all the many divisions established under the Defence of the Realm Act during the war. CHAPTER XI THE TRENT PROVINCE The north-eastern part of the Midlands, north of a line from the Northampton Heights to the western corner of the Wash, forms our Trent, or East Midland, Province. Rather more than half the area of tjiis province, in its western and central portions, is in the drainage-area of the River Trent, while its eastern section consists of the projecting area of Lincolnshire between the Humber and the Wash, and in the south-east it includes the greater part of the valley of the River Welland. The Trent Valley is directly connected with that of Central Lincolnshire by the Lincoln Gap, through which the Trent probably flowed at a recent period in the physical history of this river system. And this Trent- Witham Valley forms an easy natural route through the pro- vince from its western edge to the Wash. Most of the land boundaries of this province have already been described in relation to the neighbouring provinces of Yorkshire, Peak- don, Lancashire and Severn. The remainder 1 60 THE TRENT PROVINCE 161 is the south-eastern boundary, which divides the Trent Province from Central England and East Anglia, and stretches for about fifty miles from near the source of the Welland to the Wash, with nearly half its length in the Fenland. Starting from the meeting-point of the three Midland provinces on the Northampton Heights just south of Sibbertoft, this boundary is drawn north-eastwards along the divide be- tween the tributaries of the Rivers Welland and Nen. Its first section lies on the northern edge of the valley of the River Ise, passing south of East Farndon and Braybrooke and a mile north of Desborough to the ridge of Rockingham Forest. Thence it stretches directly north-eastwards, on the crest of the scarp overlooking the Welland Valley, to the end of the ridge a mile south of the village of Wakerley. From here the line is continued eastward across a small valley to Westhay Hill and thence north-eastward along the divide to Collyweston Hill, which it reaches about a mile to the south-east of Collyweston village. Thence it is continued down to the edge of the Fenland, passing two miles south of Stamford, and reaching the low ground just north of the village of Sainton. In the Fenland there are no valleys and no ridges. Bainton is fifty feet above sea4evel and is about twenty-five miles from the Wash Four miles east of this village the land surface II i62 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND is only twenty feet above mean sea-level ; and between this point and the sea hardly any spot reaches this altitude. The land is intersected in all directions by artificial waterways or drains, without which it would be mere swamp ; and these drains form the chief barriers in the country, since they are not easily crossed away from the causeways and bridges which carry the roads and railways. Hence across the Fenland our boundary is drawn along drains so as to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary routes. From north of Bainton it stretches eastward along a small drain to the southern angle of the Welland, the point whence that river itself flows in an entirely artificial channel. From here it follows the river until the latter turns northward in the ''New River " channel four miles south of Spalding. Thence the boundary is drawn for a mile eastward along a minor channel to the southern end of the Moulton Mere Drain, along which it stretches between Spalding and Moulton to the estuary of the Welland in Moulton Marsh, whence it is drawn along that estuary to the sea. The inhabitants of our Trent Province number more than two million people ; but there is not here any one dominant centre of population such as those in and about the capitals of the West Midland and Northern provinces. The western third of the province, THE TRENT PROVINCE 163 west of a line drawn approximately from Work- sop to Market Harborough and passing a few miles to the east of Nottingham and Leicester, contains the southern end of the eastern Pennine coalfield and outliers of the same field in West Leicestershire. These coalfields have determined the chief areas of high density of population. The first, and most populous, of these extends along the north of the Middle Trent valley from Nottingham to Derby, and sends three tongues northward, along the valleys of the Rivers Leen, Erewash, and Derwent respectively, to the provincial boun- dary. The spaces between these northward projections are also thickly inhabited, and the whole area, which forms a rough square whose sides are about twenty miles in length, with Nottingham and Derby in its south-eastern and south-western corners and its northern edge near the boundary between this and the Peakdon Province, contains just under one million people, or a little less than half the population of our Trent Province, while it occupies somewhat less than one-twelfth of its area. The greater part of it is focused on. the city of Nottingham at its south-eastern corner, where the routes of the Trent Valley and those from the Leen and Erewash Valleys converge. In the south-west of the province there are three secondary areas of dense popula- tion which together contain about half as i64 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND many people as the one just referred to. These he respectively on the coalfield round Charnwood Forest, in the upper part of the valley of the Soar in and around Leicester, and about the small coalfield at Hinckley. The western third of the province, with these areas of dense population, accounts for more than three-quarters of its inhabitants. In the larger eastern section the valleys are occupied by a moderately dense agricultural population ; while the uplands are compara- tively empty. The chief towns of this province present a marked contrast to those of its neighbours to the north and west in that they are '* old " towns, which already possessed a considerable local importance before the Industrial Revolu- tion. Nottingham was the chief town of the yVngle Southumbria ; it has ever since been the principal town of the Trent Valley ; and as it is still the largest city and chief centre of population in this region it has here been marked as the capital of the province. The whole of the populous areas are within a circle of radius thirty miles, whose centre is Nottingham. Lincoln is on the edge of this circle, which includes at least seven-eighths of the population. Only a narrow strip of the coast is situated more than sixty miles from the capital ; but this strip includes Grimsby, the fourth town of the province in population. THE TRENT PROVINCE 165 Of the five largest towns of this province to-day, four (Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Lincoln) were among the " Five Boroughs '' which ruled the region when it was the central section of the Danish dominions in England for nearly two centuries.' Grimsby alone ranks as a *' new '' town, in that its importance as a port is quite recent. In this part of England, the East Midlands, the Industrial Revolution led to an increase in the importance of the older towns instead of to the growth of new cities ; this was probably due chiefly to two facts : first, that each of these towns has good water communications, and, with the construction of canals early in the Industrial Period, became a node on these new routes ; and second, that the coalfields here are smaller and more scattered than those further to the north and west, and in the case of Notting- ham the coalfield approaches quite close to the city. The most favourable site for the growth of a " new " town, such as Birmingham or Manchester, was the southern end of the Erewash Valley ; but this is within six miles of Nottingham, and the momentum of the pre-existing city was sufficient to focus the new routes, and the consequent growth, on it, and so to prevent the appearance of a rival there. ^ The fifth, Stamford, is still an important market town, though it is now one of the smaller to\\Tis of the province. i66 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND In comparison with the Severn Province, the Trent Province may be said to possess much greater physical and historic unity, but distinctly less economic unity. The last fact is primarily a result of the relative equality of its principal towns. Although Nottingham is the chief centre of population, the number of people within the city boundary is barely one-eighth more than that of the inhabitants of Leicester, while Derby is about half as populous. Also each of these towns, as well as Lincoln to the east, has long been a place of considerable local and administrative im- portance ; and hence each has a long tradition of its own corporate life and independence. Grimsby, the one large town which lacks such a tradition, is too remote from the rest to be any other than equally ^ independent. The central position of Nottingham would probably enable it to unify the life of the province ; but it is not likely to be able to dominate that life to any great extent. In this respect the Trent and Severn Provinces offer a strong contrast to each other, since the latter possesses an extremely dominant capital. The contrast would produce interesting differ- ences between the two provinces if they ever become self-governing units. CHAPTER XII PROVINCE OF DEVON The south-western peninsula of England is quite distinctly marked out as a separate region by its peninsular form and its remote- ness from the chief centres of population. Also it is severed from the comparatively populous lowland of Somerset, to the north- east of it, by the heights of Exmoor and the Brendon and Blackdown Hills, all of which are very thinly peopled. The Devonian peninsula beyond these heights contains just over a million people. Hence we have here marked it out as the Province of Devon. This province corresponds broadly to the joint area of the two counties of Cornwall and Devon ; but its eastward boundary differs from that of Devonshire by including the whole of the valley of the River Exe and excluding that of the River Axe. It represents so obvious and simple an appHcation of the principles with which we started that little need be said about it here. The provincial boundary drawn across the I67 i68 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND base of the peninsula starts from the north coast at a point about a mile west of Culbone hamlet, west of Porlock Bay, and some two miles east of the present boundary between Devonshire and Somerset. Thence it is drawn southward over Culbone Hill and by Hawk- combe Head to the eastern end of Exmoor on the high moorland ridge between the head- waters of the River Exe and those of the small streams which flow to the Bristol Channel. On this ridge it is drawn eastward to a point half a mile west of Dunkery Beacon. From this point the line stretches south-eastwards to Lype Hill, the westernmost of the Brendon Hills, across the gap between Exmoor and the Brendons. Through this gap the boundary keeps to the watershed except for a short distance south of Wheddon Cross, which is on the divide, where it bends so as to leave the whole of that village to the north. From Lype Hill the line stretches eastward along the crest of the Brendons to a point just west of the source of the River Tone. In its next section the boundary crosses the broad opening which connects the Vale of Taunton Deane with the lowland of East Devon, between the Brendon and Blackdown Hills. This gate through the hills is the only lowland route from Devon to the main mass of England. Its minimum altitude is over three hundred feet above sea-level, and PROVINCE OF DEVON 169 it is largely occupied by a number of irregular heights of twice that elevation. It is a fairly well peopled agricultural area, a strong contrast in this respect to the almost empty moorlands along the rest of the boundary. This gate- way has always been the route of the chief land ways to and from the peninsula. Af the present day it is traversed by the chief highroads and two of the three railways which connect Devon with the rest of England, the main line of the Great Western Railway and its branch from Taunton to Barnstaple. In it our boundary keeps near the very irregu- lar line of the waterparting between the Rivers Exe and Tone. It is drawn southward from Brendon Hill along the western edge of the upper part of the valley of the Tone to cross the railway just east of Venn Cross Station. From here it coincides with the county boun- dary for some three miles further southward. Then it again bends to the south-east, passing half a mile to the north of Holcombe Rogus, over the main line of the railway in the tunnel between Burlescombe and Sampford Arundel, to the west end of the Blackdowns. The third section of the boundary is, like the first, along the crest of high and almost uninhabited moorlands. It stretches east- ward along the crest of the Blackdown Hills to the western foot of Staple Hill. Thence it turns southward along the high and narrow / I70 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND ridge which forms the eastern Hmit of the valley of the River Otter as far as Farway Hill, passing over the London and South Western Railway in Honiton Tunnel. From Farway Hill the line is drawn directly south- ward to reach the coast at the cliffs above Weston Ebb, some three miles east of Sid- mouth. The great majority of the million inhabitants of our Devon Province dwell in the valleys which open out to its south coast. The Cornish mining district in the south-west and the coast near it, from Truro to Penzance, is also relatively thickly peopled. The small valleys of the north coast contain altogether not more than a twentieth of the population. And the interior is, for the most part, very thinly peopled. The only large town in the peninsula is Plymouth, which contains a little more than a fifth of the population within its boundaries, since the amalgamation of the *' Three Towns,'' and is near the centre of the populous south coast. Hence we have marked Plymouth as the capital. Exeter was the place of entry and the administrative capital of the Roman, West Saxon, and Norman rulers of the peninsula. Plymouth has grown up as the native centre ; and the heroes of Devon are much more naturally associated with it than with Exeter. The sixty-mile circle round Plymouth includes PROVINCE OF DEVON 171 practically the whole of the province. To the north it passes through Lundy Island ; to the north-east it passes almost along the land boundary, just leaving a small coastal strip north of Exmoor and a still smaller corner near Staple Hill outside. In the opposite direction only the Land's End penin- sula and the Scilly Isles are more than sixty miles from the capital. The only towns out- side the circle are Penzance and Lynton, at opposite extremes of the province. The most distinctive facts about this Pro- vince of Devon in comparison with the rest of our provinces are its physical unit^^ and separateness from the rest, due to its peninsular form and its position, and its remoteness from the great centres of population ; the last is indeed a chief cause of its distinctness in popular feeling and tradition. It may be realized to some slight extent from a study of the following figures : Miles. London to Bristol (by rail) . . . . 1171 Bristol to Plymouth (by rail) . . 127^ London to Plymouth (by rail) . . 226^ Southampton to Plymouth (by rail) 172 J These factors of remoteness and unity form amply sufficient justification for the recognition of this peninsula as a separate province, in spite of the fact that, with an area a Httle more and a population a little less than half those of Wales, it is the least populous of all our provinces. -CHAPTER XIII PROVINCE OF WESSEX In the South Country the natural region of which the Hampshire Basin is the central area forms our province of Wessex. The limits of this province are so drawn as to include in it the whole of the Hampshire Basin and the lands which slope to it, i.e. the drainage area of the streams flowing to the depression which forms the axis of the basin ; this stretches for some eighty miles eastward from the head of the Dorset River Frome along the Vale of Dorset and through Bournemouth Bay and the channels between the Isle of Wight and the mainland to Selsey Bill. Our Wessex also includes the fragments of land between the southern edge of the basin and the English Channel, in the Isles of Wight, Purbeck and Portland, and three other small regions which are naturally associated with it, in West Dorset, the Vale of Blackmoor and the Selsey Plain. The lowland of West Dorset, in the valleys of the River Char and the streams which IT^ PROVINCE OF WESSEX 173 meet near Bridport, lies between the Hampshire Basin and the Devon peninsula ; it is completely enclosed by the sea and the Dorset-Heights to the north and east of it ; but its direct communi- cations by road and rail and its associations connect it primarily with the land to the east. At present the railway reaches only its eastern end, at Bridport ; but there is no physical obstacle to its extension westwards as far as Charmouth, through the Vale of Marshwood, so strengthening the association of this area with Dorchester and the east ; while there are very considerable physical difficulties in the way of direct railway communication in any other direction. To the west of this lowland the small port and seaside resort of Lyme Regis is more directly connected with the valley of the River Axe to the north of it than with any area to the east. One result of this is that it is in the Registration County of Devon, although in the Ancient and Administrative Counties of Dorset. The direct distance from Bridport to Lyme Regis is 7| miles, the distance by road is 9 miles, and by railway, via the junctions at Maiden Newton, Yeovil and Axminster, no less than 5o| miles. The direct connections of Lyme Regis with the north and the difficulty of those to the east have led us to draw the western boundary of Wessex just to the east of that town, between it and Charmouth. 174 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The second of these smaller regions, the Vale of Blackmoor, lies to the north-west of the Hampshire Basin, beyond the chalk of the Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase. It is drained by the Dorset River Stour south- eastward through the gap in the Downs above Blandford, which is one of the chief routes from and to the Vale. A second route is formed by the Vale of Wardour, which stretches eastward from near the head of the Vale of Blackmoor to Salisbury. Each of these routes is followed by lines of road and railway which connect Blackmoor with the central area of our Wessex, and each is also occupied by a continuous band of population; this is denser along the Stour than in the Vale of Wardour. Between the Vale of Blackmoor and the Somerset lowland to the north-west of it, the divide is very irregular and in some places indefinite. The higher ground is here thinly peopled, as else- where. But the marshy character of the valley bottoms on each side has led to the concentration of the population, which is mainly agricultural, on the lower slopes. Hence the market towns are frequently located near the heads of the smaller valleys, and so very near to each other on opposite sides of the divide ; thus the direct distance from Sturminster Newton to Sherborne is nine miles, while those from Wincanton to Castle PROVINCE OF WESSEX 175 Gary and Bruton are respectively five and four miles, and the last two towns are only three miles apart. The importance of the routes connecting the Vale of Blackmoor with the Hampshire Basin, and its historic and literary associations, have led us to include it in this province. But the barrier areas between it and the rest of our Wessex are more formidable, though less continuous, than those which separate it from the Bristol Province, and it might be almost as naturally associated with the latter, especially as the city of Bristol is somewhat nearer than Southampton and is a more important regional capital. The third of the small regions which we have grouped with the Hampshire Basin in our Wessex is the coastal plain of South-west Sussex, about Chichester, including the pro- jecting area of Selsey. The frontier between the Early EngHsh kingdoms of Wessex and Sussex in this area was formed by the marshes which stretched back from the inlets of Langstone and Chichester harbours to the foot of the South Downs. This strip of coastal plain is now well drained and cultivated, and is so far from being a barrier that it is the route of the chief roads and railway along the south coast. It is a densely peopled area, and the road by the heads of its inlets, from Fareham to Chichester, is almost a "A-J 1/6 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND continuous '' High Street " for a series of small towns. East of Chichester there is a distinct break in this series, and hence we have drawn our boundary across the plain just to the east of the immediate market area of the city of Chichester. The land boundary of the province of Wessex starts in the west at the cliffs between Char- mouth and Lyme Regis and stretches north by west for nearly three miles on the ridge between the valleys which open to the sea at these places. This ridge is nowhere less than 450 feet above sea-level ; and it joins the main ridge of the West Dorset Heights in Raymond's Hill, which overlooks the valley of the River Axe from an altitude of 725 feet. From this hill our boundary trends eastward along the divide between the streams of West Dorset and the tribu- taries of the Axe, passing north of the village of Marshwood, between Stoke Abbott and Broadwindsor, and then along the northern edge of the valley of Beaminster. Thence it is continued eastwards along the Downs, crossing the railway where it tunnels the ridge north of Evershot Station, to Bat- combe Hill. Here the line bends sharply to the north to follow the divide between the rivers of the Vale of Blackmoor and those of Somersetshire. From Batcombe Hill the boundary is drawn PROVINCE OF WESSEX 177 northward, just east of Hillfield village, along the divide to a point about midway between Holnest and Long Burton. Here our line leaves the waterparting for a short distance and stretches directly north-eastward to meet it again on the high ground north of Bishop's Caundle. In this stretch the boundary is drawn in the marshland rather than on a very indefinite divide which actually passes through two villages and within a mile of the market town of Sherborne. From here the boundary again coincides with the water- parting : it passes west of Stourton Caundle, nearly midway between Stalbridge and Mil- borne Port, crosses the London and South- western Railway rather more than a mile west of Temple Combe Junction, and then passes between Holton and Maperton to the hill south of Bratton Seymour. Thence the line stretches directly north-eastward over the gap in the ridge at the northern end of the Vale to the outlying hills off the western end of the chalk upland. In this gap it crosses the Somerset and Dorset Railway a mile north of Wincanton ; and it reaches the heights at Aaron's Hill, two miles west of Stourton. In its next section the boundary lies along the hills to the west of Salisbury Plain. From Aaron's Hill it stretches along the ridge west of Kilmington to Mapperton Hill. Thence 12 •/i I I 178 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND it passes west and north of the village ot Maiden Bradley, which is situated on the divide near the source of the River Wylye, and thence northward east of Horningsham and between Crockerton and Longleat to Cley Hill ^ome two miles west of Warminster. Here the boundary comes to the gap in the ridge, between Warminster, in the valley of the Wvlye, which flows to the Salisbury Avon, and Westbury, in that of a small tributary of the Bristol Avon, through which pass the most direct routes by road and rail be ween the Hampshire Basin and Bristol. The two market towns are barely four miles apar and between them the village of Upton Scudamore is actually on the divide in a band of moderately populous land which unites ?he two valleys. Across the gap our boundaiy is drawn to the north of Warmmster from Clev Hill to Arn Hill Down. Warminster is probably more closely asso- ciated with Bristol in its traditional and modern economic relations than it is with any other important regional foc"/ > \"f U is at the end of a tongue of denser population thrust out from the Bristol Region ?h?ough the gap. Yet if this town were to be placed in the Bristol Province it would be necessary to draw a boundary across the Wvlve Valley, a course which would give I^to consid^erable immediate difficulties and PROVINCE OF WESSEX 179 lead to further difficulties in provincial ad- niinistration. The position of Warminster between the Wessex and Bristol Provinces is doubtful, and should be decided finally by local opinion ; but it would probably be better for all concerned that it should be in Wessex. For the fifty odd miles eastward from this Warminster Gap to that of the Loddon, in the neighbourhood of Basingstoke, the northern boundary of our Wessex is drawn on the higher northern edge of the chalk plateau of Salisbury Plain and the Hampshire Downs. For almost the whole of this distance it lies on a thinly peopled open downland ; only where it crosses the few valleys which cut through the crest does it come near to enclosed and fairly populous areas. From north of Warminster the line stretches east- ward along the divide between the valleys of Salisbury Plain and the Vale of Pewsey on the crest of the Downs, overlooking the series of large villages on the greensand at the southern edge of the vale, to reach the Avon where its valley is narrowed opposite Chisenbury Camp, a mile south of Upavcn. Thence it continues eastward along the crest to cross the head of the Bourne Valley two miles north of Collingbourne Kingston. From here it passes south of Tidcombe village, and thence along the crest to Inkpen Hill, the highest m >4§ i8o PROVINCES OF ENGLAND point of the Downs. Eastward from Inkpen Hill the boundary is continued on the well- defined crest south of the Vale of Kennet between Combe and the Woodhays, to cross the gap used by the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway between Litchfield and Burghclere. a mile south of the latter station, to a point about a mile to the south of Kmgs- clere whence it turns south-eastward across the Loddon Gap, which connects Wessex with the London Basin. Across the Loddon Gap our boundary is drawn north of Hannington village, between the hamlets of Ibworth and Upper Wootton and west of Wootton St. Lawrence and Cliddesden to Farleigh Hill. It thus passes some three miles west of Basingstoke, between Church Oaklev and Worting, and crosses the main line of "the London and South-western Railway about three miles west of Basmgstoke Station and nearly a mile east of the junction. From Farleigh Hill the eastern boundary of the Province of Wessex is drawn southward to Butser Hill in the South Downs, two and a half miles south-west of Petersfield, along a direct distance of some twenty miles. In this stretch it lies on the high eastern edge of the Hampshire Downs, on the crests whence that plateau falls away steeply to the Weald it keeps near the divide between the Hampshire rivers Itchen and Meon to the west, and tlie PROVINCE OF WESSEX i8i Rivers Wey and Rother of the western end of the Weald to the east. From Farleigh Hill the line is drawn south-eastward between Ellisfield and Herriard and then southward between Bradley and Lasham and between Medstead and Bentworth to cross the Win- chester and Alton Railway half * mile east of Medstead station. Thence it is continued to cross the Meon Valley line half-way between Privett and East Tisted. From here it stretches south-eastward to Warren Corner, thence south-westward by Stoner Hill and along the ridge between Froxfield and Langrish, and thence across the gap between East Meon and Langrish, by Barrow Hill and Ramsdean Down, to Butser Hill. This last gap is the only place in which this section of the boundary passes through a moderately populous area ; elsewhere it lies on very thinly peopled crests. From Butser Hill the line is drawn for some fifteen miles eastward along the crest of the South Downs, on a strip of open and unpeopled upland. A mile and a half east it crosses the Portsmouth Direct line of the London and South-western Railway over the tunnel south of Buriton ; and further east it crosses the Chichester and Midhurst line (London, Brighton and South Coast Railway) over the tunnel south of Cocking village in the Cocking Gap. Five miles east of this Gap the scarp of the Hi 1 'itIU i82 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Downs bends sharply southwards on Barlaving- ton Down, west of Sutton. Here our boundary also bends southwards and leaves the Downs to stretch across the coastal plain to the sea From Barlavington Down the line is drawn southward by the spur of Nore Hill to reach the plain between the foothill villages of Eartham and Slindon. Thence it crosses the plain in a direction slightly west of south, passing between Aldingbourne and Westergate to reach the sea between Pagham and Aid wick. This line crosses the South Coast Railway about two miles west of Barnham Junction. East of it the coastal plain is narrow and is connected with London to the north, through several gaps m the Downs, of which the Arun Gap is the western- most ' Our line crosses the plain approximately midway between Chichester and Arundel and reaches the sea west of the suburbs of Bognor. This watering-place is economically a part of that London-by-the-Sea which stretches along most of the coast of Sussex, Kent and Essex; and hence it is best lett in the London Province. The Province of Wessex, within the bound- aries which have just been described, contains a population of a little more than a niilhoii. Of this number more than half is included in the three large towns of Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth, with their PROVINCE OF WESSEX 183 immediate suburbs. Hence the greater part of the province is very thinly peopled. There are only two small areas in which the density of population reaches over 300 per square mile, or half the average density for the whole country, which was 618 per square mile in 191 1 for England and Wales. The larger and more important of these is a strip of land extending from Winchester down the Itchen Valley and thence from Southampton south- eastward to beyond Chichester over a distance of more than thirty miles, with a width of from one to four miles. This area from Winchester to Chichester, if we include in it Southampton and Portsmouth, occupies no more than a fortieth of the area, but contains more than half the population of the province. The second area of dense population is formed by the series of seaside resorts on the east and south-east coasts of the Isle of Wight from Ryde to Vent nor. Apart from these two areas and the neighbourhoods of Bournemouth and Weymouth there is a fairly thick agricultural population in the valleys along all the larger streams. This forms bands along the Test from Andover southwards and along the Avon below Sahsbury, the Frome east of Dorchester and the Stour below Blandford. Above the Blandford Gap the Stour Valley widens into the Vale of Blackmoor, which is similarly well peopled, while in ,84 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND West Dorset the valleys about Bridport have also a similar density of population. For the rest the chalk downs, which occupy nearly half the area of the province, and the numerous heathlands, of which the New Forest is the largest, are very scantily peopled. Of the three large towns of Wessex, bouth- ampton is bv far the most central in respect to all three factors of area, distribution o population and communications. Hence it is here marked as the capital, although Portsmouth is the largest town. Each of the three is directly connected with, and chiefly dependent on, interests outside Wessex. They serve the country as a whole, rather than this province alone. Portsmouth is the chief naval base and dockyard town ; Bournemouth is a residential and health resort, comparable to Nice on the Riviera while Southampton is a great commercial seaport whose economic hinderland includes London and the Midland industrial areas, and it is also becoming an industrial centre No one of these towns is intimately associated with the life of the agricultural population. And the historic and administrative impor- tance of the ancient cities of Winchester, Salisbury. Dorchester and Chichester, together with the nearness and overwhelming prestige and attraction of London, has so far effectively prevented the development of any one regional PROVINCE OF WESSEX 185 capital in the Hampshire Basin. Hence there is no such definite centre of provincial life and organization as those possessed by the provinces of Industrial England. None the less Wessex is a well-marked natural region, with a very considerable regional consciousness and patriotism, which in its modern revival owes much to the writings of Thomas Hardy. It is the most distinctive province of the south-eastern half of the English Lowland. In it Southampton is the oldest English town, and the one which has given its name to the central shire and to the natural region of the Hampshire Basin ; so that it is fitted by tradition as well as by present conditions to become an active capital for Wessex. CHAPTER XIV THE BRISTOL PROVINCE The districts round the Severn Estuary, together with the Somerset Plain, inchiding the area drained by the Bristol Avon, have long been known to their inhabitants, and to many people in other parts of the English Lowland, as a distinctive region, under the name " West of England." with a definite regional capital in the ancient city of Bristol. This city, Hke Nottingham, has been able, by means of its position on the waterways and its nearness to small coalfields, to retain and even to increase its relative importance m the region throughout the changes of the Industrial Revolution. During the Middle Ages it was often accounted the second city of England, holding a place in the west of the lowland analogous to that of London in the east (cf. Fig. 5, p. 56). In 1911 it was still the seventh city in order of populousness, having been outgrown by the five " new " cities of Birming- ham Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. It has also been passed by the Tyneside 186 THE BRISTOL PROVINCE 187 conurbation, which is somewhat more populous than that along the Bristol Avon. In this case the strength of tradition, geographical momentum and modern economic importance combine to make Bristol one of the strongest regional capitals in England. And it is here indicated as the capital of the Bristol Province, which includes the central parts of the '' West of England " region. This province includes the populous areas on each side of the Severn Estuary, in the Forest of Dean and the southern Cotswolds, with the Vales of Berkeley and Gloucester between them, together with the lowland which extends from the shore of the Bristol Channel to the edge of the chalk uplands of Wessex, and two smaller areas, the Vale of Pewsey in the east and the valley of the River Axe in the south, which are more naturally connected with this province than with any other. Most of the boundaries of this Bristol Province have already been described in relation to the three neighbouring provinces of Devon to the south-west, Wessex to the south-east and Severn to the north. The remaining sections are the eastern boundary, between this and the Central Province, and its boundary with Wales to the north-west. The eastern boundary follows in general the watershed between the drainage-area of the Bristol Avon and other streams which i88 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND flow westward to the Bristol Channel and that of the River Thames. The line starts in the north on the crest of the Cotswolds, some four miles east of Cheltenham, and is drawn southward across the col through which the road and railway pass eastward from that town. Thence it follows the scarp westward for about four miles to Leckham Hill, about three miles south of Cheltenham. From here the line is drawn southward along the main divide of England, which here leaves the Cotswold scarp. Our line is drawn along the spur between the upper valleys of the Rivers Frome (of Stroud) and Churn to the hill ridge in Sapperton Park. From here it crosses the Thames and Severn Canal and the railway over the tunnels in which they pass the divide south of Sapperton, and thence stretches southward and south-eastward across the lower land near the very indefinite divide which separates the Vale of Malmesbury from the Upper Thames Basin. In this stretch it passes between the villages of Cherington and Rodmarton, southward between Tetbury and Ashlev, and then east of Long Newnton and between Charlton and Hankerton to Stone Hill, two and a half miles east of Charlton. Thence it stretches directly south-eastward by way of Worthy Hill to Hook Hill, one and a half miles north of Wootton Bassett. From there it passes a mile east of Wootton Bassett and about THE BRISTOL PROVINCE 189 four miles west of Swindon to reach the scarp of the Downs just east of BincknoU. Along this scarp the boundary is drawn south- westward and southward round the head of the Kennet Valley to Oldbury Hill and Bishop's Cannings Down. Here it reaches, and turns eastward along, the scarp which forms the northern edge of the Vale of Pewsey. It follows this for some nine or ten miles eastward and then turns south across the head of the Vale east of Wootton Rivers and between Easton and Burbage to Easton Hill, where it meets the northern boundary of Wessex. The north-western section of the boundary, between the Bristol Province and Wales, leaves the boundary of the Severn Province at the southern summit of Graig Serrerthin and is drawn thence southward to the Severn Estuary west of the valley of the lower Wye, so leaving more than three-fourths of Monmouthshire, with about nine-tenths of its population, to Wales. From Graig Serrerthin it stretches south by east on the crest of the ridge just west of the Monnow River to King's Wood, two miles west of Monmouth. South of this point the ridge is interrupted by the pas- sage of the small River Tothy through it ; and our boundary is drawn directly across the gap, passing west of Wonastow, to its continuation southwards. Thence the hne keeps to the crest by Trelleck Hill, passing I90 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Trelleck Cross, and just east of Devauden, whence it stretches westward on the summit of a steep-sided narrow ridge for some four miles. From this point the ridge trends southwards, but here the boundary leaves it alon^ a spur, which stretches a httle east of south through Went wood, and reaches the coastal lowland between Llanvaches and Penhow. whence it is continued directly to the Severn Estuary between Roggiett and Undy, crossing the railway a mile west of Severn Tunnel Junction, approximately half- way between Chepstow and Newport and Bristol and Cardiff. Our boundaries have thus been drawn through Monmouthshire so as to leave onlv the eastern fringe of that county, along the 'valleys of the Monnow and the Wye, to England in the Severn and Bristof Provinces. "^West Monmouthshire con- tains the eastern part of the South Wales coalfield and is very definitely a part of that region. The boundary we have just described keeps to the most thinly peopled strip of land between the areas of dense population about the Forest of Dean and in South Wales. ^ The population of our Bristol Province within the-e limits is rather more than one and a quarter millions. Nearly half of this is con- tained in the conurbation in the centre of the pro\ince which stretches along the Avon from its mouth up to Bradford in Wiltshire, a distance THE BRISTOL PROVINCE 191 of some twenty-five miles. At present this one conurbation is locally governed by no less than five county authorities, in the county boroughs of Bath and Bristol and the admin- istrative counties of Gloucester, Somerset and Wilts. In the northern part of the province there are four small areas of corresponding density of population about the towns of Gloucester and Cheltenham, on the Forest of Dean coalfields, and in the valleys about Stroud, Dursley and Nailsworth in the southern Cotswolds. Cheltenham is in the north-eastern corner of the province, within five miles of the boundary to the north and east. This town is of the same class and general character as Buxton and Matlock in the Peakdon Province. As a residential and educational centre it depends upon the whole country and not on its own neighbourhood ; hence the position of a provincial boundary in relation to it is of Httle direct importance. All these populous areas are more accessible from and more easily associated with Bristol than any other regional capital of equal importance. In the rest of the province there are well peopled agricultural areas in the valleys round the Forest of Dean, along the western foot of the Cotswolds from Cheltenham to Bristol and in the upper valleys of the Bristol Avon and its tributaries from Tetbury to Frome. 192 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND This last area extends eastward to Devizes, the market town of the Vale of Pewsey, which is almost on the watershed between the Bristol and Salisbury Avons. Most of this Vale is drained southward by the latter river, but this connection to the west, combined with the fact that it is surrounded on the other three sides by unpeopled downland areas, determines the association of the Vale of Pewsey with the Bristol Province. In the south the Somerset lowland is in gene- ral a fenland dotted with numerous '^island" hills of moderate altitude. The older market towns and villages are mostly situated on the lower slopes of these hills or round the inner edges of the lowland. Here the marshy flats and the higher parts of the hills are ahke very thinly peopled, and the population of this prosperous agricultural region is mainly in a fringe round the plain and on island hills in it, like that of the Vale of Blackmoor (see p. 174). The patches of greatest density are at the southern foot of the Mendips in the north about Wells, in the upper part of the Vale of Taunton to the south-west, and in the south from Chard and Ilminster to Yeovil. The last two reach low watersheds. The market town of Chard is on the low waterparting between the Somerset Plain and the valley ol the River Axe to the south, in a gap which is the easiest natural route into that valley by THE BRISTOL PROVINCE 193 land. The Axe Valley as a whole has much easier connections to the northward than it has either westward or eastward ; and this, together with the extension of a fairly dense population over its northern watershed, has led us to include it in the Bristol Province rather than in Devon or Wessex. The whole valley as far south as the coast of the English Channel is nearer to, and more directly acces- sible from, Bristol than either Plymouth or Southampton. The long-standing economic importance of Bristol as the chief town and port of the '' West of England" has made it the chief railway centre in that region. Hence nearly all parts of the province are readily accessible from the capital. The whole province is within a sixty-mile circle round Bristol City, and most of it is within thirty miles. The circum- ference of a circle of thirty miles radius whose centre is in Bristol passes north of Monmouth and the Forest of Dean, and near to Gloucester, Wootton Bassett, Devizes and Bridgwater. The one place of importance not connected with the capital by railways within the province is Tetbury : and here a short link of five miles of new line along the valley from Malmesbury would effect the connection. I.; V CHAPTER XV PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA This province consists essentially of the region which was the ancient Kingdom of East AnSia i e. the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, ai^d tke Fenland, which was the frontier between that East Angha and the contemporary Sdom of Mercia. Its western boundary 1^ Sn on the low ridge at the western edge of the Fenland, and its southern boundary on the somewhat higher eastward contmuat^^^^^^ o? the Chiltern Hills between the Fenland fnd the London Basin, and then between the valleys of the Rivers Stour and Cobe to the estuary of the Stour. The north- western boundary has already been described in relation to the Trent Province. The western boundary between this and the Central Province, starts m the nortn *om CoUyweston Hill, on the bound^y the Trent Province in the ^f^^-east comer of the county of Northampton; thence i stretches South-eastward for two and a h^^^^ miles and then turns east by Old Sulehay PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA 195 Forest to cross the River Nen between Wans- ford and Yarwell. Immediately east of the valley it is drawn southward, passing half a mile west of Wansford Station, along the ridge which here forms a secondary water- parting at the edge of the Fenland, reaching from the Nen to the gap in which the River Ouse cuts through this ridge just east of Huntingdon. This is a low, flat-topped lime- stone ridge, for most of its length less than 200 feet in height, but rising almost 150 feet above the fertile and often marshy valleys at each side. The summit itself is thinly peopled ; but the swampy character of the low ground has led to most of the dweUings being built along the foot of the ridge, the edges of which are marked by lines of villages. Our boundary stretches south by east between these lines, passing between Chesterton and Elton, Morborne and Warmington, Sawtry and the Giddings, and the Riptons and Stukeleys, to reach the Ouse between Wy ton and Hartford, about two miles east of Huntingdon. South of the river-gap the boundary reaches the ridge again between Hemingford Abbots and Godmanchester. From here to the Chilterns, along the ridge, is a direct distance of about twenty miles. Our boundary keeps to the higher ground and passes west of Graveley, and then between Yelling and Toseland, Eltisley and Croxton, and Bourn and Gransden to 196 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND the higher ground (over 250 feet) which rises midway between the valleys of the Rivers Cam and Ouse. Thence it passes west of Long Stowe and east of the Hatleys to the edge of the higher ground at Croydon Hill, between Croydon and East Hatley. South of this hill our boundary comes to the low land between the headwaters of the Rivers Rhee and Ivel. Here the villages of Ey worth, Dunton and Hinxworth are situated on the divide. Our hne is drawn east of these passing west of Guilden Morden, to reach Newnham Hill, on a spur of the Chilterns it is thence drawn along this spur to the crest of the main ridge, where it meets the northern boundary of the London Province. The southern half of this western boundary from the River Ouse to the Chiltern Hills, lies approximately midway between Cambridge and Bedford ; and it is nowhere very far from the boundary between those counties, which zigzags from side to side of the watershed. The southern boundary of East Angha, between it and the London P/ovince, trends eastward along the watershed between the streams which flow to the Wash and tho e - which flow to the Thames. In the south- west corner of the province the villages ot Kelshall. Therfield and Reed are on the divide^ Here our boundary is drawn just to the south of these villages so as to leave them m tne PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA 197 same province as their market town of Royston. The line stretches eastward from the crest between Kelshall and Sandon, passing between Reed and Buckland to reach the divide again to the north of Barkway. Thence it passes between Chishall and Langley and bends south-eastward between Arkesden and Clavering to pass round the headwaters of the River Cam. To keep to the actual divide here would involve making a long and very narrow projection southward and following a very sinuous course round the small market town of Saffron Walden. Hence in this neighbour- hood again our boundary is determined by the waterparting only in its general trend. It passes southward from Clavering Hill for about two miles and then turns east between Quendon and Ugley, trends north-eastward between Widdington and Henham, and turns northward a mile east of Debden hamlet. It then passes to the west of Wimbish and again turns to the east about three miles east of Saffron Walden to the divide between the headstreams of the Rivers Stour and Colne. It passes half a mile north of Ridge- well and then stretches south-eastward on the relatively thinly peopled ridge between the valleys of the Stour and Colne to the head of the estuary of the River Stour, two miles north-west of Manningtree. From here to the sea the boundary is drawn along the 19$ PROVINCES OF ENGLAND estuary, thus leaving the packet station of Harwich in the extreme north-eastern corner of the London Province. This province of East AngUa is mainly an agricultural region ; in it there is no great conurbation and no area of very dense popu- lation comparable to those in which we found the bulk of the people of each of the pro- vinces hitherto considered. Although this is, in area, one of the largest of these Provinces of England, it is very nearly the least populous (see Fig. 13, p. 266), containing a little less than one and a quarter milhons of people ; and it has the lowest density of population. The greater part of its population is settled m the valleys which open to the east coast, from that of the Stour northward. This eastward slope from the East Anghan Heights occupies a httle more than half the area of the province. The shorter westward slope to the Fens and the Fenland itself are less thickly peopled and, though the valley of the River Cam, above Cambridge, contains the most densely peopled area in the whole of the province, the total population to the west of the heights is httle more than half of that on the eastward slopes and the east coast, while the East Anghan Heights themselves are an area ot thin population. The province contains only one town witii more than 100,000 inhabitants, and only three PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA 199 others whose populations exceed 50,000. Its seven largest towns, with their populations in 1911, are: Norwich (121,478), Ipswich (73,932), Yarmouth (55>905)> Cambridge (55,812), Lowestoft (33777)> Peterborough (33,574), and King's Lynn (20,201) ; and these contain jointly less than a third of its people. Of these towns, Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great part of their size to their modern development as fishing ports and seaside resorts ; Cambridge and Peter- borough are important market centres of the Fenland, which owe their excess of population over other corresponding market towns in the first case to the University and in the second to the G.N.R. works established there. Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge and Peterborough are all county towns and local centres of considerable importance, but of these the last three are situated in corners of the province, while Norwich is at once its largest town and the focus of its most populous section. The city of Norwich has long been the ecclesiastical capital of East Angha ; and it is still the chief town of the region, as the principal market and the most important manufacturing town. Hence it has been marked as the capital of the province. Just as this province has no dominant centre of population, so it has no one principal railway centre. Norwich is the best road 200 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND centre ; and it is also the chief centre of railway communications on the eastern slope. Its communications with Cambridge and Peterborough, the railway centres of the south-west and north-west corners of the province, could be considerably improved by the construction of short link lines. The first of these would link two sections of the Great Eastern Railway, from a point about four miles south of Thetford to one some six miles east of Newmarket via Lackford and Cavenham : this hne would be some ten miles long. An alternative to this would be a line from south of Thetford to the terminus at Mildenhall, which would be of about the same length, but would traverse less populous country and pass no village of any importance. It is somewhat remark- able that there is no railway directly west- ward from Norwich. Our second suggestion is for a direct connection from Norwich to Peterborough, which would involve two link lines. The first of these should start from the Midland and Great Northern Joint line two and a half miles from Norwich and pass up the valley of the River Tud for twelve miles to Dereham on the Great Eastern Railway. The second would stretch westward from a point on the Great Eastern Railway about four miles west of Swaffham to the junction near Watlington on the same railway PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA 201 system, a distance of about ten miles. From here there is a direct branch of the Great Eastern Railway to Wisbech, and thence to Peterborough a line of the Midland and Great Northern Joint system ; but at Wisbech there is a gap of less than half a mile between the two systems which would have to be bridged. The lack of connection here between the two railway systems which between them serve the northern part of East Angha is a relic of the period of railway competition which perpetuates much of the inconvenience of that time without any of its advantages. It is paralleled in Norfolk by the similar gap west of Aylsham, and in many other parts of the country. While Norwich is less excentric in this province than any of the other considerable towns, it occupies a fairly central position only for the north-eastern part of the region. A circle round Norwich of sixty miles radius does not touch the western boundary of the province ; it includes Cambridge, but not Peterborough, and St. Ives and Saffron Walden are near its circumference. The excentric position of all the large towns of East Angha and the absence of any dominant centre of population in this province may make it feasible to establish an artificial capital in some one of the smaller towns, to be chosen primarily for its cen- m m II 202 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND tral position and made the chief railway centre and the focus of the whole region. Here the distribution of the population and the physical features of /he provmce both favour such a development. The towns of Norwich. Ipswich, Cambridge and King s Lynn arc situated approximate y at the four corners of a square whose sides are about forty-five miles long. Near the intersection cS the diagonals of this square is the sma 1 ancient borough and market town of Th- ford. If a central position is to be a chief '.. \- (^r- +>iat rank then Thetford qualification for that raiiK, i"«=' should be the capital of the province. Th. is said to have been at one time the capUa of the Kingdom of East Angha ; so that th suggestion may be regarded as one for the revfval of. an -i-t capital as .^^^^^^^^^^^ Itosretr-tantVw Sty milesMroni fortv-five miles away ; it is m the chiet rans^' rse route through the fast Anghan Heights from eastern slopes to the Fenland^ and the whole province is withm a circle ol fiftv miles radius round it. It is "ow a small railway junction, but it could easd, be made the centre of the East Anglian railways by a few short linking branches^ none of which would meet any serious PROVINCE OF EAST ANGLIA 203 physical obstacles. In every other province there is a distinct natural capital deter- mined by the distribution of its population and its systems of communications. In East Anglia alone is there an opportunity for the creation of a new capital. CHAPTER XVI THE LONDON PROVINCE The south-eastern corner of England here forms the London Province. This consists essentially of the great city and its suburban areas. The province includes the London Basin up to the crests of the Chiltern Hills and the North Downs, except for its long and narrow westward extension between the Berkshire and Hampshire Downs in the Vale of Kennet, the whole of the Weald and the coast from Harwich to Bognor, including both these towns. To the east and south it extends to the sea ; to the north, north- west and south-west it is bordered by the provinces of East Angha, Central England and Wessex. The northern and southern sections of its land boundary have already been described, in the chapters on East Anglia and Wessex respectively ; so that only the central section need be considered here. This extends northward from the Wessex Downs on the heaths of East Berkshire, east of the vallev of the Loddon, to cross the Thames 204 THE LONDON PROVINCE 205 some three miles above Marlow. Thence it stretches north-westward along a spur of the Chilterns to the watershed between the streams of the upper and lower Thames Basins ; and along this it is drawn north-eastward near the crest of the Chiltern Hills to the south-east corner of East Anglia. This boundary between the London and Central Provinces leaves that of Wessex at the western end of the North Downs, on the hill between Herriard and EUisfield, about four miles south of Basingstoke. Thence it is drawn eastward on the ridge between the valleys of the Rivers Wey and Loddon to Clare Park, two miles west-by-north from Farnham. Here the line turns northward across the upper part of the valley of the Blackwater tributary of the Loddon so as to leave the populous area about Aldershot and Farnborough to the London Province. Our boundary is drawn between Ewshott and Crondall, east of Crookham and west of Fleet, thence over Yateley Common and across the River Blackwater between Black- water and Sandhurst, just west of the Royal Military College, to Bagshot Heath. From this heath the line continues northward between Ascot and Bracknell, passing some three miles west of Windsor Great Park, to Ashley Hill, four miles west of Maidenhead. Thence the boundary stretches directly across the Thames f 2o6 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND between Hurley and Medmenham to Bockmer Hill on a spur of the Chilterns and reaches the crest along this spur. Along the Chiltern Hills the boundary keeps near to the waterparting. It is drawn along the crest above Chinnor, thence across the railway in the Risborough Gap a mile and a half south of the station to the ridge between Hampden and Princes Risborough, and along this to the Wendover Gap, in which it crosses the railway a mile south-east of Wendover Station. Beyond this the line is continued along the scarp to the Tring Gap, in which it crosses the London and North-western Railway and the Grand Junction Canal between Northchurch and Tring. Thence it is drawn over Ivinghoe Common along the crest to Dunstable Down. This down, whose summit rises to 782 feet above the sea, marks the north-eastern end of the higher section of the Chilterns, in which the summits are usually at altitudes of more than 800 feet. Beyond it, few summits reach 600 feet, and the average height of the crest is between four and five hundred feet, while the gaps are also corres- pondingly lower than those to the south-west. From Dunstable Down the boundary is drawn round the head of the valley of the River Lea, at a distance of four or five miles from Luton, passing to west and north of Dunstable, a mile from that town, and across THE LONDON PROVINCE 207 the Midland Railway two miles north of Leagrave Station. The line then bends to the east over Barton Hill to Telegraph Hill, four miles west of Hitchin, whence it bends southwards round the edge of the lowland bay in which this town is situated. In this Hitchin Gap it crosses the Great Northern Railway half a mile north of Stevenage Station at a lower altitude than that of any of the gaps already mentioned. From north of Weston the line stretches directly along the crest for about five miles to reach the East Anglian boundary by passing just to the south and east of vSandon. This London Province, within the boundaries we have just indicated, is the largest of all our English Provinces. It comes first in the list in order of area, in order of population and in order of density of population (cf. Fig. 13, p. 266). It contains more than ten million inhabitants, and is thus also the most populous province of Britain, with more than twice as many people as either Scotland or Ireland and fifty per cent, more than the Lancashire Province. Three-fourths of this population is within the Metropolitan Police Area ; and it is probably safe to ascribe nearly nine-tenths of it to the metropolis and its suburbs. The outer limits of the suburban area to the north and west almost reach the boundary of the province, which is here only some thirty 2o8 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND miles from Charing Cross. Along the coast on each side of the Thames Estuary, and from the Isle of Thanet south-westward, is the detached series of seaside suburbs which form '' London-by-the-Sea *' and are all economically dependent on the metropolis. This seaside series is checked westward by the change in the character of the South Coast west of Selsey Bill, where it is broken by a group of muddy estuarine inlets and ceases to be favourable to the growth of seaside resorts ; so that Bognor is the westernmost member of the continuous series. The province is wholly centred on and dominated by London, on which all its roads and railways converge. The ex tent of this domination is well illustrated by the absence of any longitudinal railway in the Vale of Sussex, between the Wealden Heights and the South Downs, except for the short stretch west of the River Arun. At least seven-eighths of its people dwell within thirty miles of Charing Cross, and the small areas of agricultural or horticultural population round London and in the Vales of Kent, Surrey and Sussex are wholly dependent on the London market. Only the furthest seaward projections of the province, about Har- wich, the tip of Dungeness and the Kentish Forelands, are more than sixty miles from the heart of London. In no other province is the capital so overwhelmingly dominant. CHAPTER XVII CENTRAL ENGLAND The remaining part of the country forms our Central, or South Midland, Province. This is surrounded by the Severn and Trent Provinces to the north-west and north, East Anglia to the east, London to the south-east, Wessex to the south and Bristol to the south- west. And all its boundaries have already been described in relation to those provinces. This province occupies the central districts of the English Lowland, the series of clay vales in the trough between the chalk scarp of the Chilterns and the oolitic limestone scarp of the Cotswolds, from the edge of the Fenland to the divide between the .Thames and the Bristol Avon, together with the westward prolongation of the London Basin in the Vale of Kennet which forms its southern sec- tion. It 4s made up of three smaller regions, (i) the Upper Thames, or Oxford, Basin in the centre and v/est of the province, (2) the valleys of the Rivers Nen and Ouse above the Fenland m the north-east, and (3) the valley of the KiJ •jj' 14 209 Ir III 2IO PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Kennet and a small part of the Thames Valley about Reading in the south. The first two of these are not divided from each other by any distinct ridge or barrier; the waterparting between the streams of the Oxford Basin and those flowing to the Wash is a very sinuous, and often indefinite, line, on slight elevations transverse to the hill ranges which mark the north-western and south-eastern edges of the province The third, or southern region, is separated from the central one by the uplands of the Berk- shire Downs and the south-western end of the Chiltern Hills. This area of separation is crossed by several highroads ; it is completely broken where the river cuts through it in the Thames Gap ; and in this gap and at two places to the west it is traversed by railway lines which connect the Kennet Valley, at Reading, Newbury and Marlborough^ with the Oxford Basin to the north On the south the Vale of Kennet is severed from the Hampshire Basin by the corresponding, but wider, separating area of the Downs of North Wessex. But to the east it merges with the London Basin, from which it is not cut off by any continuous barrier. As a whole thi. vale is much nearer and more akm to the Oxford Basin, especially in the occupations of its people, than it is to London ; and hence it has been assigned to the Central Provmce. CENTRAL ENGLAND 211 Its western half is more than sixty miles from London ; while no part is as much as forty miles from Oxford and most of it is less than thirty miles from that city. The population of this Central England is a little less than one and a quarter millions. Of this total about a fifth is in the southern of the three regions referred to above, and the rest is almost equally divided between the central and north-eastern regions. Like East Anglia, it contains no very large town and no considerable area of really dense -population ; and hence it is one of the least populous of our provinces. It has five con- siderable towns, which together include a little more than a fourth of its people ; they are, with their populations in 1911, North- ampton (90,064), Reading (87,693), Oxford (53.048), Swindon (50,751), and Bedford (39.183). Of these the city of Oxford is the one which is most centrally situated in the province as a whole and also with respect to the other towns. It is also the long- established regional capital of the Oxford Basin, the central region of the province. Hence it is here marked as the provincial capital. Outside these towns the population is mainly occupied in agriculture, and settled fairly evenly along the valleys. In the Nen Valley below Northampton, there is i I I 212 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND an industrial district, including perhaps a hundred thousand people engaged mainly in leather-working, in and about a group of small towns of which Kettering, Welhng- borough and Rushden are the chief. But as a whole this Central Province is an agricultural district, with an average density of population less than half that of the whole country. It is thus marked off clearly from the neigh- bouring London and Severn Provmces. Probably a majority of its people are directly or indirectly connected with agriculture rathei than with any other industry or with commerce. The whole of our Central England is withm a hundred miles of London ; and nearly two- thirds of it is within sixty miles of that city. The main lines of most of the great railway svstems of this country aim primarily at connecting London with the populous industrial areas in the north-western hal of the land. Hence the outstanding feature of the railways of this provmce is that the> radiate from London. No less than nm such main lines pass through it,' and the X Thev are : (i) G.N.R. via Hitchin and Huntingclon. (2) M r' vL Luton, Bedford and Kettenn|^ ^3) L- & N.W.R. via Tring to Rugby. 4) GX.R. v>a Wend«\^ and Aylesbury to Rugby. (5) G.W.R. direct Une Birmingham via Risborough, Bicester and Banbury TaV ^ w R tn Worcester via Reading and Uxioiu. 2 § W R. to' B^i^toT and South Wales via Reading 2d S^^andon. (8) G.W.R. to Somerset and Devon CENTRAL ENGLAND 213 local lines are all subsidiary branches. The most important of these branches is that of the London and North-western Railway from Oxford north-eastward along the vales, through Bicester, Bletchley and Bedford, towards Cambridge. Other longitudinal lines between the Chilterns and the Cotswolds are quite fragmentary. Oxford is even now the best railway centre in the province, and could with comparative ease be brought into effective communication with all parts of it. The chief connecting line to be suggested for this purpose is one on the London and North- western Railway system from Bicester via Buckingham to Roade Junction, a distance of • about twenty miles : this would give direct communication between the north- eastern and south-western parts of the province, via Northampton and Oxford ; it would also provide another direct route from the South of England to the eastern parts of the North Midlands and the North. In the south-western corner of the province, about the head of the Thames Valley, there is at present an extraordinary lack of connec- tions among the several lines of railway. Here through the Kennet Valley. (9) L. & S.W.R. via Basing- stoke. There are also (10) M. & S.W. Joint from Chelten- ham via Cirencester, Swindon and Marlborough to Southampton ; and (11) the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line, which connects with the G.W.R. and G.C.R. to form a north to south route. 214 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND we would suggest the extension of the small branch from Swhidon to Highworth for five miles further to connect with the line from Oxford to Fairford near Lechlade, and so provide a more direct route from Swindon to the centre of the province. Then the line to Fairford should be extended beyond its present terminus at that town along the Upper Thames and into the Bristol Province to Badminton, connecting with the Midland and South-western Joint Railway and a Great Western Railway branch on the way. At present there is no transverse main line of railway in England nearer to London than that in the Triassic Vales beyond the Cotswolds, from Bristol through Birmingham to Derby and Nottingham. The line just referred to should form the south-west section of a corresponding transverse route between the Cotswolds and the Chilterns, from Bristol by way of Oxford, Bedford and Cambridge to the capital of East Anglia. Such a main line across the lowland would add greatly to the facilities of intercommunication in the southern half of England. Two other lines may be suggested. The area south-east of Oxford, in the angle between the Thames and the Chilterns, is perhaps as ill provided with railways as any corresponding agricultural area in the country : it could be best served by a line along the east side of the river, CENTRAL ENGLAND 215 from near Littlemore to a junction some two miles north of Goring, with a branch to Watlington at the foot of the Chiltern scarp. A similar link from Thame to Aylesbury would connect the upper and lower parts of the Vale of Aylesbury, between which there is now no direct line ; and a branch from the Oxford-Bedford line near Ridgmont to Hitchin would bring the eastern corner of the province into direct touch with its central areas. The construction of these lines would go far to unify this province, and also to improve the internal communications of the countrv as a whole. \ CHAPTER XVIII THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY The boundary between the English and Welsh counties, from the estuary of the Dee to the Bristol Channel, is of the same character as those which separate any other; counties in the two countries. It was established only w^hen Wales was formally incorporated with England and the Welsh Marches were divided into counties, in 1535 a.d. By the Act of incorporation the English counties of Gloucester, Hereford and Shropshire were extended at the expense of the marchland ; the Welsh counties of Glamorgan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan and Merioneth were similarly extended ; and five new counties were created from the remainder of the marchland, namely the Enghsh county of Monmouth and the Welsh counties of Brecon, Radnor, Montgomery and Denbigh. The new county boundaries were defined by a Boundary Commission in the years 1535-42 ; and they do not differ in any way from those which divide the older counties. There is no 216 THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY 217 indication that the position of any of these boundaries was determined by language distributions or any other differences between English and Welsh. But in the discussion of this boundary to-day we must take into consideration two factors which do not affect any boundary between our English provinces. These are, first, Welsh nationalism, and second, the extent to which the language of the border districts is English or Welsh. Probably the two are related to some extent ; although nationalism does not depend on the possession of a particular or exclusive language, a fact which is well illustrated in Scotland and Ireland as well as in Switzerland. It is as impossible for one person to know^ the strength of Welsh national sentiment in the border districts as it is to know the strength of regional patriotisms in many parts of England. And we cannot know how Welshmen may regard any suggestions for the modification of the boundary until such suggestions have been published. The writer has attempted to obtain information on this matter, but has only succeeded in gathering a number of very contradictory assertions. The second factor, that of the relative prevalence of the English and Welsh languages, is fortunately capable of exact measurement. Vol. xii of the Report on the Census of 111 2i8 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND igii is devoted to the '' Languages Spoken in Wales and Monmouthshire/' For the purpose of the language censuses in 1901 and 191 1 all children under three years of age were excluded,^ and the rest of the popu- lation classified as — (i) Those speaking English only. (2) „ „ Welsh „ (3) ,, ,, both English and Welsh. {4) ,, ,, any other languages. (5) Those who made no statement as to their language. The last two groups together accounted for less than 3 per cent, of the total, and they need not be referred to again. The numbers, per thousand of the population aged three years and upwards, in each of the first three groups were : — (i) English only (2) Welsh only (3) Both languages . . These figures indicate that EngUsh is the principal language. In 191 1 the monoglot English formed an absolute majority and nearly nine-tenths of the total spoke English, while the monoglot Welsh were less than a tenth ; and the proportion of those speaking Enghsh had increased considerably since 1901. I In 1891 the age limit was two years ; hence the figures for that census are not faidy comparable with those of the later censuses. 1901. 498 I9II 537 151 «5 348 350 THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY 219 The accompanying diagram-map (Fig. 9) shows the distribution of the people of the FVoporUon of the Population (oi/er three \jears old) speaking English only. 1911 ■••••Cotinfij Boiin4«ne» J" Mil Fig. 9. — Distribution of Monoglot English in Wales and Monmouthshire. first group, i.e. those who speak Enghsh only. It is based on Table 3 of vol. xii of the 220 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Census of 191 1, and it indicates not the actual numbers of the monoUngual Enghsh in Wales, but their proportion to the total population in each urban and rural district. The distri- bution indicates that Enghsh has spread westward by four main routes, along the south and north coasts and up the valleys of the Severn and the Wye almost to the sources of those rivers. The only lowland area of any important extent in which Welsh is spoken by a majority of the people is Anglesey. Our suggested eastern boundary of Wales is also shown on this map. The adoption of this line would transfer from England to Wales more than 380,000 people— 5,500 in what are now the north-west and south-west corners of Shropshire, the territory added to that county in 1535, and the rest in Central and West Monmouthshire, in the valleys of the Usk and Rhymney Rivers. On the other hand, it would transfer from Wales to England less than 25,000 people, somewhat less than two-thirds of them from the north-east corner and the rest in East Radnorshire. In the districts affected by the suggested change of boundary, as is shown on the map, the population is overwhelmingly Enghsh-speaking. In the detached south-eastern part of Fhntshire, the Overton Rural District, 947 per 1,000 speak Enghsh only, and only four persons in THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY 221 a total of 5,176 are returned as speaking Welsh only. In Radnorshire as a whole the corresponding figures are 934 per 1,000 and eleven in a population of 22,590 ; in the eastern part of Radnor, which we have allotted to the Severn Province, there was in 1911 only one person recorded as speaking Welsh only. If language were the only test, the county of Radnor must be regarded as entirely English ; but, as we have already noted, language is not the only, or even necessarily a chief, factor in national and regional patriotism ; and it is probable that a Welshman who knows no Welsh may be quite as ardent a lover of Wales as his compatriot who knows no English. In Monmouthshire there were 863 per 1,000 speaking English only, and 4 per 1,000 speaking Welsh only ; here the Welsh-speaking population is almost wholly in the western edge of the county, in the Rhymney Valley. The suggested change of boundary would not affect any Welsh-speak- ing district, and it would still leave Wales with a majority of its inhabitants speaking English only. The only practicable attitude of any provincial parliament towards the language question in such a province as Wales is one of strict impartiality. There must be no attempt to suppress either tongue, or to compel either section of the people to learn the language 222 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND of the other ; although it is very desirable that there should be abundant facilities for them to do so ; and it is probable that social and economic conditions will ensure that the great majority will understand one of the languages. Our suggested land boundary for Wales is the result of a compromise between the principles on which the other provincial boundaries are drawn and the particular condition, which we have added in this case, that no district in which anv considerable part of the population uses Welsh should be allotted to an English province, i.e. we have aimed at confining the language problem to one province. In the north our boundary is drawn along the estuary of the Dee and up the lower, artificially straightened, channel of that river to a point half-way between Sandycroft and Saltney Ferry. Here it leaves the river and stretches directly south-west across the marsh- land for two miles. It then turns southward, passing just w^est of Broughton village, to the corner of Cheshire west of Lower Kinnerton. From this point it foUow^s the county boundary between Flint and Cheshire south-eastward to a mile beyond Pulford, whence it is drawn directly across the marshes to meet the Dee again at its confluence with the River Alyn. In this northernmost section our boundary leaves THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY 223 to the Lancashire Province the marshland east of the lower course of the Dee and the Flintshire villages of Sealand and Broughton. It is drawn across the angle made by the Dee so as to leave the city of Chester, with its western suburbs and the villages closely connected with it, entirely to the east. From the junction of the rivers Alyn and Dee southward the boundary is drawn along the latter river to the confluence of the Ceiriog, and then up that tributary for nearly two miles to the bend a mile east of Chirk. This stretch of the boundary extends about fifteen miles in a direct line, and much more along the meandering course of this part of the Dee. It leaves the mining and industrial district about Wrexham and Ruabon entirelv to the west ; and it only differs from the eastern boundary of Denbighshire in that it keeps to the river, while that boundary frequently follows the courses of abandoned meanders. Here the control of the river must be a matter for a joint commission of the Lancashire and Welsh Provinces. The river is adopted as the boundary because it is the only definite line which does not clash with the language distributions. Southward from the bend of the Ceiriog our boundary is drawn along the ridge west of Oswestry to the River Vyrnwy, passing between Weston Rhvn and Rhew^l and between 224 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Selattyn and Hengoed, and coming down to the vallev bv Crickheath Hill so as to reach the Vyrnwy just east of Llanymynech, where it emerges from the upland. In this reach it leaves to Wales the north-western corner of Shropshire, including the parishes of Weston Rhyn, Selattyn, Llanyblodwel and Llanymynech. Across the opening in which the Rivers Severn and Vyrnwy come out from the upland and unite, the boundary is drawn along the lower course of the latter river, which is also the hne of the existing county boundary, to a point half a mile below the confluence. Thence the line is drawn along the minor divide which separates the upper valleys of the Severn and Wye to the west, in the Welsh Upland, from the lower tributaries of those rivers to the east. It stretclies south-westward to Kempster's Hill and from there southward between Middletown and Wollaston to the northern end of Long Mountain. It hes on the crest of this ridge east of Welshpool, and at its southern end turns south-eastward between Marton and Worthen, across the gap which cuts off Long Mountain: to Stapeley Hill, and thence to Corndon Hill. From here it is continued south- ward east of Hyssington and between Snead and Lydham, where it again turns to the south-west. From this point, just north of Bishop's Castle, to the River Wye, our boundary THE ANGLO-WELSH BOUNDARY 225 follows the divide which stretches round the headwaters of the Rivers Clun, Teme, Lugg and Arrow, in the highland districts of Clun Forest and Radnor Forest. It is drawn in a direction south of west along the high northern edge of Clun Forest and by Kerry Hill to the ridge above the sources of the Teme. Thence it stretches southward by Warren Hill and Beacon Hill, past the source of the River Lugg, crosses the Central Wales Branch of the London and North-western Rail- way a mile east of Llanbister Station, and con- tinues on the high western edge of Radnor Forest to cross the highroad south of that upland a mile west of Llanfihangel-nant-Melan. Fronr there it passes by Bryn-y-Maen, Gwaun- ceste Hill, Glascwm Hill and Bryngwyn Hill ' to Clyro Hill, which overlooks the Wye. From this hill the boundarv is drawn down to the valley bottom between Llowes and Clyro, and directly across the river, passin^g '^ a mile west of Hay, to the northern end of the ridge which forms the eastern edge of the Black Mountains, on which it reaches the sections of the boundary which have already been described (see pp. 156 and 189). This boundary is drawn generally along the eastern edge of the Welsh Upland. It crosses the Severn and the Wye just where those rivers emerge from that upland into the Vale of Shrewsbury and the Hereford Basin 15 226 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND respectively. At its northern end it leaves the upland and passes along the Dee so as to leave the populous industrial area of East Flint and Denbigh in Wales. And at the southern end it also leaves the edge of the upland and is drawn through East Monmouth- shire so that the far more populous area associated with the South Wales coalfield may be kept as a whole in Wales. The changes in the area and population of Wales which would result from this boundary are considerably to the advantage of that province. And the distribution of the popula- tion is such that this province would have no less than three-fifths of its people concentrated in its south-eastern corner, in Glamorganshire and the parts of Monmouth which are added to it. The total population is under two and a half miUions, so that in order of populousness Wales would rank eighth among the divisions of the British Isles. CHAPTER XIX UNITY OF THE PROVINCES The strength and value in the Hfe of the people of any such provinces as those we have discussed must depend primarily on the extent to which they can develop a patriot- ism of their own. Without the support of a strong public opinion, both national and provincial, in their favour, the provinces could never come into existence, or be in any sense effective units for democratic local government. Tlie prospects of the growth of any such opinionrin -the area of any one province must depend largely on the extent to which that area is really a unit region in reference to the sentiments and needs of its inhabitants. If the people of the province have, and realize that they have, a sufficiently large common measure of interests and senti- ments to justify a claim for provincial self- government, then we may reasonably expect that the province would be a strong and effec- tive unit for the satisfaction of their common needs and the organization of many of their 337 Fig. 10.— Chief Lines of Railway in Relation to the Provinces and their Capitals. The circles are drawn, with radii of thirty miles, round the vincial capitals (except Sheffield). pro- UNITY OF THE PROVINCES 229 public services. Hence the streng .th,x}£aiLy: _one of our provinces as a unit for self-government depends on— 1. The unity and coherence of its [ territory and the interdependence of its I various districts. 2. The numbers and wealth of its inhabitants. 3. Their feeling of unity and local patriotism ; or the extent to which it is possible to develop in them such a feeling of pride in and responsibility for the province. 4. The extent to which it is or is not dependent on any outside centres of population and influence for its regional life. Any such dependence must w^eaken, though it may not destroy, the internal unity of the province. In Great Britain there are several regions whose peoples already have a strong sense of their regional unity. This is exceptionally well marked in Yorkshire and Lancashire and in Wales and Scotland. But these more local patriotisms do not in any way detract . from the unity of the whole cx)untry or the strength of the natiOffal ^patriotism, probably^ the reverse: the provincial is likely 16 be"" more patriotic than the cosmopolitan. And the nation which recognizes the existence 230 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND '' of many diverse regionalisms within itself ^and encourages the fullest and freest develop- ment of regional individualities is thereby - strengthened far more than it could be by any suppression of local differences in favour of a mechanical national uniformity. . Over- centralization of the life of a large nation tends to weaken its members by the subordina- tion of the provinces to the metropolis and the concentration of the powers of initiative and organization in the capital ; and the weakening of the members involves in the long run the enfeeblement of the whole. It is common for many people, especially in metropolitan cities, to sneer at provincialism as if it were necessarily a mean and petty sentiment. Narrowness of outlook is a defect to which the provincial is perliaps liable. But patriotism, like many other virtues, must '^ begin at home. And the man or woman who has no love for and pride in his or her home region is not thereby qualified for wider views of life. Provincialism is J[n_ itsell .--xi _. good thing, and a necessary fector in the wellbeing of humanity. It is ' only_.^roducti ye of ill wlien it leads to a lack of a due sense of proportion in compar- ing one's^bwn region with others and one's own folk with those of other parts of the world. In this country such a sense of proportion is to be found quite as much in UNITY OF THE PROVINCES 231 any of our provincial capitals as in London. The citizen of the great metropolis is in many cases so conscious of the magnitude of his own city that he quite fails to realize that it is only a part of England and of Britain, and in many respects not the most impor- tant or representative part. London is not England, any more than New York is America. The life of the industrial regions is focused in their own great cities and is very largely independent of the metropolis. The men of Birmingham and Manchester, of Sheffield and Newcastle, and other great regional capitals of England, are rarely disposed to yield precedence to the Londoner in any respect, or to look to London for guidance in matters of thought. London has no lead in science or thought comparable to that which she exerts in commerce and finance. Most of the twelve provinces into which we have marked out the country are, or are capable of becoming, strong provinces in that they are regions whose inhabitants have a considerable range of interests and sentiments in common, and are differentiated by many of their interests from those of the neigh- bouring provinces. The North Country is one of the strongest of our provinces because of its economic unity, the numbers and wealth of its popula- tion, and its remoteness and the strength of its 232 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND local patriotism. This last is mainly a result of the relative isolation and independence of centuries past, due to that remoteness from any other large centres of population. A similar remoteness has given to the people of the Devonian peninsula a corresponding unity and independence and strong local patriotism, which is sufficient to guarantee the strength and individuality of our Devon Province, in spite of its relative weakness in numbers. The Lancashire Province is also a region with a very strong and distinctive individu- ality. The very numerous population of this province occupies a well marked natural region, and in it has developed a strong regional patriotism and a tradition of in- dependence of thought and action. The isolation and remoteness of medieval Lan- cashire are things of the past. The pro- vince is now the central region of the British Isles, and it has abundant links with all parts of the world. The distinctive character of the region is a guarantee of the strength and independence of our Lancashire Province ; while the number and importance of its links with the outer world are amply sufficient to prevent its strong local patriotism from becoming a narrow provinciaHsm. Lancashire is likely to be a leading province in a Federal Britain. UNITY OF THE PROVINCES 233 East of the Pennines, Yorkshire has for many centuries maintained its character as one of those parts of England in which regional consciousness is strongest. In the last cen- tury it has developed two separate modern regional capitals in Leeds and Sheffield. And, in contrast to the position in Lancashire, where Liverpool and Manchester are nodes of one urban region and parts of one industrial and commercial area, Leeds and Sheffield are foci of regions each of which has its own distinctive industrial character. Again, in the north-east of Yorkshire the Cleveland area has grown into an integral part of the North Country, instead of an outlying corner of Yorkshire. Hence the Ancient County of York has in our scheme been divided. The Yorkshire Province, which is wholly within its limits, contains the greater part of its area and two-thirds of its population. Its southern section contains the nucleus and chief part of the Peakdon Province. But its north-eastern and north-western corners have been assigned to provinces whose central areas are outside the ancient Yorkshire. How such a distribution will affect, or be affected by, Yorkshire patriotism it is impos- sible to know. But it is equally impossible not to recognize that Leeds and Sheffield are capitals of distinct and co-ordinate regions, and that these tw^o could not well be united 234 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND in one province or either of them subordinated to the other in any way. Each of them is the focus of a region which has sufficient strength to form a distinct province. And by giving these regions separate organization, each is left free to develop its own distinctive character ; and the rivalry between them may serve a useful purpose by leading each to strive for the best development of its province and so offer a stimulating example to the rest of the country. The Peakdon Province can set against its small area the advantages of a greater compactness and unity round one focus than are possessed by any other province. The three remaining provinces which are largely industrial — Severn, Trent and Bris- tol — have somew^hat less natural unity and coherence than those already referred to, because the regions they occupy are sections of the English Lowland which are much less distinctive natural regions and lack the definite areas of separation which mark out Lancashire or Devon or the North Country. The factors which make for unity in each have already been discussed in relation to that province. They are, we believe, sufficient. The three provinces bordering London are unquestionably the weakest of our twelve. They are also, except for Devon, the least populous ; and their smaller populations are, UNITY OF THE PROVINCES 235 in general, more evenly distributed than those in other parts of the country. Their weakness is in part a direct result of their nearness to London, of the relative absence of separating areas between them, and of the extent to which the life of this part of England has for many generations been focused on and dominated by the capital. In the whole of this part of England, London is the only regional capital on any large scale ; in it there is no important daily paper published outside London, while each of our other provincial capitals has an influential press. Of the three provinces, East Anglia is the most distinct and furthest from London ; and it still has a tradition of regional life and thought apart from that of the metropolis. This eastern province is somewhat aside from the main routes which connect London with the other great centres of population, and it is well beyond the range of the immediate suburbs of the great city. Also the fact that it is the most thinly peopled of these Provinces of England, together with its character as an agricultural province, marks off its people and their work from the urban life and interests of London. Hence it may well develop a definite provincial life and patriotism. Tlie same is true, to a much less degree, of Wessex ; though the three large towns of this province are, each in a 236 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND different way, very directly dependent on London, and each of them is economically and socially more closely associated with London than they are with each other. Central England is nearer to London than either of the others ; along the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Heaths it almost reaches the outer fringe of the direct suburbs, for this boundary is only thirty miles from the heart of London. But this province has also a distinct geographical unity ; and, in a region which is mainly agricultural, its people have in many respects different interests and sympathies from those of the metropolitan area. The rural life of many of its smaller towns and villages is very little affected by the impulses from the great cities, which appear to pass through this region without stopping there, like many of the express trains which rush through it. The Central Province is the weakest of all our provinces in any tradition of unity, and it may be the least likely to develop any distinctive individuality. But it could not conveniently form a part or parts of any other province or provinces ; it is for the most part distinctly separated from other regions ; and it certainly has considerable possibilities for the develop- ment of active provincial life. CHAPTER XX THE PROVINCES AS EDUCATIONAL AREAS Another very important series^ of relations which may be briefly considered here is that between the modern universities and our_ provinces. The rise of these universities has helped the provincial capitals to resist the enormous centralizing power of London and to develop their intellectual self-respect and independence. In the field of educalioa, recent developments have shown ..up. the inadeguaoy, of the areas now controlled by the Education Committees of our counties^ and towns. The natural unit areas for edu- cational administration would seem to be those of the primary school district, i.e. the area from which such a school draws its pupils, the corresponding secondary school district, and the university region. If we set these out in a systematic form, using the letters a, fe, c to denote areas of different orders of magnitude (as on pp. 31-32), we have as education areas corresponding_to {a) pro- 237 "^'^ i 238 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND vinces.._ {6) - districls.__ and (c) townships or wards of towns — {a) University regions, each of which should be made up of a number of (6) Secondary School districts and Tech- nical School districts, each of which should be made up of a number of I (c) Primary School districts. The relation of these divisions to the actual distributioii_jQl^ the population is obvious. But~siEce_llxe areas controlled by our Local Education Authorities are those of older local government bodies, those areas have no necessary relation to the natural school districts. Hence there is considerable over- lapping and waste in the provision and maintenance of schools. No Local Education Authority controls an area corresponding to a university region. In the abortive Education Bill of 1917 there was an attempt to create " Educational Provinces," each of which was to be related to a university. Hence the distribution of the Universities and University Colleges of England in relation to our provinces is a matter of very great interest. On the accompanying map-diagram (Fig. II, p. 242) the position of each of these institutions is indicated by a star. The ancient universities of Oxford and EDUCATIONAL AREAS 239 Cambridge are in a class apart from the young modem universities which have grown up in all our larger cities in the past two or three generations. They belong to the nation as a whole, and not to ai;y^_one region, aiid they are ^ more intimately associated with the metropolis than with any other city. .Hence it is very unlikely, and not at all desirable, that they should be specially--T^kfct€d to any provincial parliament . The. -modern university, on the other hand, usually tends to become in many respects a regional university. X iAs oft en the agex ojLtJjg^ educational organization of the region ; and i t is to some extent, and should be much more, intellectual centre for the constructive an development of its region in "many directions. Much of its research and teaching is strongly influenced by the characteristic work of its region, as, for instance, in the Faculty of Metal- lurgy of the University of Sheffield. .A_ yio[orou s and well-equipped university can do mucTil to develop the sense of unity and community of interests in the region it studies and serves, and it should be a focus of intellectual life . and interests. It is very significant that each of our great regional capitals of the industrial provinces has developed a university. The facts that Bristol University is the youngest of these. 240 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND and that Nottingham has a strong University College which has not yet attained full university status (though it will probably do so in the near future), may be associated with the positions of those two regional capitals. Bristol is a somewhat smaller capital of a less populous region than those of our Northern and Severn Provinces. And in the economic hfe and interests of the Trent Province, Nottingham is less dominant than are those capitals in their respective provinces. The greater regional consciousness, population and economic wealth of Lancashire are reflected in the fact that that province possesses two of the strongest of our modern universities. The standing and dominance of the University of London in the remaining half of the country is a reflex of that of London itself. In the south and south-east there is no other modern university. There are three university colleges in this part of the country, at Exeter in Devon, Reading in the Central Province and Southampton in Wessex. Within the last year (1918) there have been local movements to form a federal university for the Devon peninsula and to obtain full university status for the colleges at Nottingham and Reading. East AngUa is the only one of our provinces which has no modern university institution within its hmits. That in Devon is at a EDUCATIONAL AREAS 241 considerable distance from the chief centre of population. And in the Central Province the populous north-eastern section is too far distant from any such institution. Hence we may suggest that there is need and room for universities at Plymouth, Norwich and Northampton, and probably also at Hull, in addition to the further development of the colleges at Nottingham, Reading and Southampton, so that no part of the country should be beyond easy reach of university facilities. Our provinces are in most cases suitableu. "-umversity regions " for educational organiza- tion ; though some of them may include two or even more such regions. And, with due provision for the maintenance of a' satis- factory minimum standard in the most backward province, the provincial parHaments should be entrusted with full control of education. The proportion of universities to population in certain countries was stated in Nature of June 6, 1918, in a report of a paper by Sir Robert Hadfield, as- United States, one univ^ersity for 1,000,000 inhabitants. Germany, one university for 2,000,000 inhabitants. France, one university for 2,500,000 inhabitants. United Kingdom, one universitv for 2,500,000 inhabi- tants. 16 w Fig. II.— DisTRiBi'TioN of Universities in Relation to THE Provinces. The sites of existing universities andfuniversity colleges arc denoted by asterisks— suggested ones by small circles. EDUCATIONAL AREAS 243 Within the United Kingdom the corre- sponding figures are :— Universities. Population. Population to each University Institution. Wales . . I (3 U.C.'s)* Millions. 2-4 800,000 Ireland 3 (and 2 U.C.'s) 4-4 880,000 Scotland 4 (and i U.C.) 4-8 960,000 England 10 (and 4 U.C.'s) 34 2,430,000 The number _pf_univexsities desirable in any country or province cannot be determined by reference to the numbers of.lhe. people only; it is largely dependent on the distribution of those people in relation to suitable centres ; but the figures quoted show that there is room for more universities m England, in comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom and with the United States and Germany. And the least of our provinces is evidently sufficiently populous to form a university region. The considera- tions which have guided the choice of the capital would equally decide that in each case one of the universities of a province should be situated in its capital. * With the addition of a fourth university college at bwansea, to the three which now form the federal University of Wales that country will be placed still turther ahead of the rest of Britain in this respect. CHAPTER XXI RELATION OF THE PROVINCES TO OTHER PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS The distribution of England into provinces, and the delimitation of the boundaries of these provinces, has been discussed hitherto without any particular reference to the areas or boundaries of older divisions of the country. The scheme suggested here has been worked out by the apphcation of the principles of division with which we started (cf. pp. 69 and 70) to existing distributions in England. The very fact that the present distribution of the population and chief centres of the country is completely different from that of the period w^hen our older divisions were formed ensures that our provinces cannot be systematically related to anv of those divisions. The break in our island history between the departure of the Romans and the estabUsh- ment of the English kingdoms was so complete that no direct traces of divisions older than those of the Early EngUsh have affected our present organization. But those Early RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 245 Enghsh kingdoms, of the centuries between the first settlements of the Jutes and the^ unification of most of what is now England under one overlord in the tenth century, were in some cases the direct precursors of the modern counties, as in Kent and Sussex ; while in other cases the name still survives to indicate regions which include the whole or a part of the area usually ascribed to one of them, as in East Anglia, Northumbria and Wessex. In such a case the tradition of a former unity may still be sufficiently strong to influence local patriotism. Probably East Anglia is the most definite instance of this ; there the ancient unity is still reflected to some degree in local life, though the greater part of its area has long been divided between two of our ancient counties, and the character of its western borderland in the Fens has changed completely. But we should remember that the period from the fifth to the tenth centuries was in England a time of almost continuous warfare among the several semi-barbaric states, and against invaders from oversea, on the one hand, and the earlier inhabitants of the island on the other. Hence the period was one of fluctuating states. Few of their boundaries can have been definite ; and changes in the extent and numbers of the several kingdoms were very frequent. Hence their limits at any 246 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND given period, even if they were accurately known, could not be of much value in deter- mining provincial boundaries to-day. Two of our provinces. East Anglia and Wessex, are named from the ancient kingdoms, in each case because that name has persisted to our own days. In neither case do the boundaries of the province claim any relation to the fluctuat- ing hmits of the ancient kingdom ; and in the case of Wessex our province represents only the nucleus of that kingdom. The relations of our provinces to the counties is' a matter of much more interest and importance, since the county has long been the principal subdivision of this country. Our modern counties are based in general on the ancient counties, though seven of the ancient counties have each been divided into two or more modern counties and the County of London is entirely modern. In these divided counties, as, for instance, Yorkshire and Sussex, county patriotism seems to be associated \\dth the ancient county and to ignore the modern divisions. But in the other^ and^ far more numerous, cases in which the differences between the ancient and modern counties are comparatively small and scattered, there "^ is less certainty as to the effect of the changes on local feeling. These smaller differences have been due mainly to three sets of changes. ^ (i)Y^ost of the formerly very numerous RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 247 detached parts of counties have been annexed to the county by which they were surrounded.^ The existence of such detached fragments may have been due, in many instances, to the desire of a great lord to have all his manors in the county in which he himself was most influential. They seem to have been most numerous in the South Midlands, where there are still many detached parts of counties (cf. Fig. 3, p. 45). ^ (2) The provision in modern local government that a civil parish shall be wholly within one county.^ This has led in some cases to the division of a parish which was formerly in more than one county along the county boundary, in others to a change in the latter line. In other instances a parish has been transferred from one county to another, as, for instance, the parishes of Hawkchurch and Chardstock, which were in the Ancient Countv of Dorset and are now in the Administrative County of Devon. (3)frhe growth of urban districts on county boundaries, and the resulting inclusion of the whole of such a district in one county.^ These smaller changes appear to have been generally accepted by local feeling. Where this is the case, such local patriotism as is associated with the county is now connected with the modern county. And evidently there is no insuperable obstacle to further changes. Fig. 12. — Relations of the Provinces to the Counties. r. Northumberland. i8. a. Cumberland. 19. 3. Durham. 20. 4. Westmorland. ai. 5. North Riding of York. 22. 6. Lancashire. 23. 7. West Riding of York. 24. 8. East Riding of York. 25. 9. Cheshire. 26. 10. Derby. 27. n. Nottingham, 28. 12. Lindsey. 29. 13. Kesteven. 30. 14. Holland. 31. 15. Shropshire. 32. x6. Stafford. 33. 17. Leicester. 34. Rutland. Soke of Peterborough. Isle of Ely. Norfolk. Hereford. Worcester. Waiwick. Northampton. Huntingdon. Cambridge. West Suffolk. East Suffolk. Monmouth. Gloucester. Oxford. Buckinghaiu. Bedford. 35. Hertford. 36. Essex. 37. Middlesex. 38. London. 39. Somerset. 40. Wiltshire. Berkshire. Surrey. Kent. Cornwall. Devon. 46. Dorset. 47. Southampton. 48. West Sussex. 49. East Sussex. 50. Isle of Wight. 41. 42. 43- 44. 45 RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 249 The relations of our provinces to the modern counties as regards area are indicated on the map in Fig. 12. The corresponding distribu- tions of population as between the provinces and those counties are given in detail in Appendix I, Tables {b) and (c), A glance at the map is sufficient to show that a provinc e usually consists approximately of a group of" count resrT>irE Ttrat — ttre BoiiMarie^s _ oF^ provinces and counties coincide in very few_ cases. It is also noticeable that nine of the twelve ciHes indicated as provincial capitals are situated so near to a county boundary that their suburbs extend over it ; only Leeds, Norwich and Southampton are well within one county. Many of these differences of boundary are comparatively slight ones, due to the shift from the line of a stream to the divide at one side of its valley. Thus most of the western boundary of Derbyshire is formed by the River Dove ; and here the whole valley of that river is included in the Trent Province. Similar small changes are responsible for the differences between the county and provincial boundaries round the Somerset Plain, to the north of the London Province, and north- west of the Central Province. It is unnecessary to refer to these smaller changes separately : they, like the larger ones, follow directly from the appHcation of the principles on i 250 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND which these provincial boundaries have been drawn. In the North, Westmorland has been divided almost equally between the North Country and Lancashire Provinces. This accords with the natural and long-standing division of that county, by the moorland ridge across it from the Cumbrian Mountains to the Pennines, into two sections, the Northern or Appleby Division in Edendale and the Southern or Kendal Division which slopes to Morecambe Bay. Of these the northern appears to have been part of Strathclyde, and sometimes of the Kingdom of Northumbria, and then of the Earldom and Bishopric of Carlisle in the Early Middle Ages ; while the southern formed part, at different times, of the Kingdom and Shire of York and of the bishoprics of York and Chester. Hence there is abundant historic precedent for so natural a division. Each of the North Midland counties of Derby and Stafford is divided between three provinces ; and one parish of Derbyshire (Lullington) is in the Severn Province. These divisions result from the modern distribution of population in this part of the country ; North Stafford and North-west Derbyshire are associated with the Lancashire conurba- tion, while North-east Derbyshire is similarly associated with Sheffield, and the south and south-east of the county is in the Trent RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 251 Valley and is more closely connected with Nottingham as a regional capital. Similarly the division of the counties of Holland, Huntingdon and Buckingham each between two provinces, and of Southampton, Wilts and Gloucester each between three provinces, are necessary consequences of the fact that the provincial boundaries are related primarily to the present-day distribution of the people. Wiltshire, which has already been referred to (p. 64), is the most striking illustration of the way in which the valley-ward migration has completely reversed the relative positions of the areas of dense and scanty population and so justified a change in boundaries. The names of six of our twelve provinces have long been associated with the regions— the North Country, Lancashire, Yorkshire, East Anglia, Devon and Wessex ; though the association is not with the precise area of the province. In respect to area we have extended the name Lancashire to the whole natural region of which the county of Lan- caster is the central and largest division ; that of Yorkshire has been hmited by the excision of outlying areas which have hitherto been annexed to the natural region which is the essential Yorkshire, while that of Devon is here apphed to the whole of the Devonian pen- insula. The other three were not related to any specific boundaries. These six provinces \ \ 252 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND have therefore the great initial advantage for the development of a provincial patriot- ism of starting with a tradition of regional unity and a strong local patriotism which may be attached to the province without any violation of sympathies or traditions. Two more of our provinces have here been denoted by the names of their capital cities- London and Bristol. The region of the London Province includes several of the older counties, including two which are derived from separate kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon period, Kent and Surrey ; but its unity as a province is that of Greater London and its suburbs, and the chief natural region compos- ing it is the '' London Basin " of geographers and geologists. Hence it is almost inevit- ably termed the London Province. Round Bristol the popular regional name has been " West of England " or " West Country." But our Bristol Province has no better claim to the name '' West of England " than the Severn Province has, and a less claim than could be made on behalf of Devon ; while the term ''West Country" has different local meanings from north to south of England —in Durham and Northumberland it refers to Cumberland and Westmorland. Hence it was necessary to find another name for this province, and that of Bristol is employed here as the one which has been associated RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 253 with its chief city, and the channel to which nearly all its streams flow, throughout EngUsh history in the region. In Peakdon we have a province whose modern unity is due to the economic develop- ments which have focused this populous area on the city of Sheffield. And here we have suggested a name which is quite new. The province consists of two smaller natural regions, the High Peak District and the valley of the River Don ; and we have therefore called it " Peakdon." The three remaining provinces are those of the East, West and South Midlands respectively. No one of them coincides with or is based on any considerable region which has a distinctive name ; and, with the one exception of Berkshire, all the counties of this part of England are named from their county towns. The first two we have named the Trent and Severn Provinces respectively, from their principal rivers, which serve largely to unify them in sentiment as well as in fact. For the third we have not found a satisfactory name, though it is physically a more distinct natural unit than either of the other two. It is formed from parts of the valleys of three rivers, the Thames, Great Ouse and Nen, between which there are no strong or definite dividing areas. The historic relations of England to the Continent \ 254 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 255 and the situation of the capital in the south- eastern corner of the country, with the chief lines of communication radiating from it, have led to the greater use of routes trans- verse to this region of vales between the two main scarped ridges of the Cotswolds and the Chilterns than of the longitudinal routes between these ridges. Except when the great medieval diocese of Lincoln spread along these vales from the Fenland to the Upper Thames, the region does not appear to have ever been united for any purpose. Hence there is no historic name for it. It was divided along a very shifting frontier between the early Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex ; but it does not include the nuclear districts of either of them. The name Central Province or Central England is appropriate because this is the central part of that lowland which is the England of history and tradition ; but it has little of the appeal to imagination and local feeling which is inherent in the names of the other provinces, and is therefore not completely satisfactory. There is considerable variety among our provinces both in respect to area and to the numbers and grouping of their populations. This is, we believe, very desirable ; but since some suggestions made in discussions on the subject have been based on the assumptions that it is desirable to have either equality 1 • ^ ■S E § fO CO M " • 4-1 ♦J - 5: « 3 OS ^ _^ e Small a "Ti ^m X} ^ > ? ^' • 1 5?; Vi w *i le be u K ; h] t V j x: 4J .i '^ ./> S E H ra 6 i «*- 9i p omber o s ^ • CO 0) CO go i '■ < %<^ s • a Qs mm 1 - »>4 ^ m^ • ^ C< •■ ^3 1 p^ ' 4; vO C 1 bC w rt Ran i , ^^ o (li M c/5 a J30 00 N c <£ CO 13 » 5 O ^ rt a O 13 w u c/) S 0) u cr CO Qi u ri P CO ^ ff^ CO -a ^•^ ■• S o _„ ^ o u w O 'C o.S o c 6 to p CO O V* S ^ o p CO c» a CO CO H ^ v $ Vi p cr CO o 10 CO t^ •■ t-i -♦-> CO p CO CO p CO •rt G a S CO d H 03 CO p a o a B o CO U CO N 00 CO S tN. c^ C^ vO °> O S o 52 o p o p o p o > CO CO S •3 (-1 a p CO "^ o _ CO c o -o p u a p cr o o c o s -M I-" CO M 5 ^•?;; sSP ® ^'> 52 t? o P P S S2 c« CuP ro N CO GO 00 I2I P o -a p o > Q CO 4) CO 6 r2 a o P CO ■• 10 ^ CO 4) l-i nj P cr CO O O c o 'O 0) /^ CO '-^ p S *^ co.S O lis .22 y, ;s 256 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND of area, or equality of importance, i.e. of population, among the provinces, it may be interesting to compare them in this respect with the constituent units of the three great EngUsh-speaking Federations. This com- parison is set out in the table on p. 255. The figures here given show that the range among our suggested provinces, as units in a Federation of the British Isles, is very much less than that among the provinces, of Canada or the United States and very similar to that among the states of Australia. The same table may serve to convince any one who needs it that the devolution of a large measure of parliamentary functions to sell-governing" provinces in these Islands cannot in any way prejudice any schemes for the closer federation of the various self- governing states of the British Common- wealth. On the contrary, it seems probable that if the British Isles formed a federation akin to those of Canada and Australia, the British Parliament would be in a better position to study any such schemes, into which this federation would enter as a unit, on the same footing as Canada and Australia. It may also be well to note the bearing of the principles on which our Provinces of England have been delimited on the other countries of the British Isles. Nothing in them would suggest any division of Scotland RELATION TO OTHER DIVISIONS 257 or Wales, even though the area of those countries is greater, and hence the accessibihty of a capital in each is much less, than that of any English province. But in Ireland there are two separate, and approximately equal, city centres in Dublin and Belfast, each- of which is a focus for a distinct part of the population of Ireland. And the north- eastern corner of the island, which is focused on Belfast, is in many ways sufficiently distinct to form a separate province in a British Federation. But here the problem is complicated and embittered by political and religious antagonisms of long standing ; hence it raises many questions which are altogether outside the scope of this book. In all the figures given for the provinces of Britain, Ireland has been regarded as a whole. 17 CONCLUSION 259 CHAPTER XXII CONCLUSION The division of England into provinces which has been sketched out in the preceding pages would certainly, if it were carried out, be an effective means of bringing order into the existing chaos of subdivisions of the country for the purposes of its internal and local government. The establishment of rational divisioas-^^with- simple boundaries, closely related to the actual features of the land and the distribution of the people, would render possible a far greater economy of administration than can be expected under present conditions. And such provinces might well make a much wider and more effective appeal to regional patriotism than can be done by any of our existing divisions, and so enlist in the pubhc service the active interest and goodwill of a larger proportion of their inhabitants. Each province is sufficiently extensive and populous to include a considerable variety of people and local conditions within its bounds, and to need, and be able to maintain, all the necessary organs of a self-governing province within the Commonwealth. But no one of them is too vast for its internal affairs to be intelligible to its citizens, or for all of them to have a high common measure of sentiments and of interest in it ; and in the most thinly peopled province the density of population is such that its inhabitants are in close contact with one another ; so that there should be in each a well-informed public opinion on provincial affairs. Hence they are favourable unitsfor the further de- velopment of democratic institutions. Their parliaments need not be so overburdened with details as to be inefficient organs of popular government, as the existing Parlia- ment of the United Kingdom has been for the past generation ; uox_ would they be likely_tq sink into a narrow parochialism, for each would be concerned with a wide range of activities and interests. The reduction of the present excessive centrahzation of our political and adrninis- trative systems hi London is another,. ad- vantage which would necessarily follow from a large measure of provincial devolution. This would make the machinery of local government much more flexible and responsive to the varying needs of the different provinces, and bring it into closer touch with the people in each. And if the existing friendly rivalries 26o PROVINCES OF ENGLAND between some of the different regions of Britain were continued, as we believe they would be to some degree, into correspond- ing rivalries between various provinces, the resulting stimulus to the better government of the provinces and the organization of all their public services would be of incalcul- able value. When Lancashire is free to re- organize and plan out the confused and overcrowded congeries of towns in her great conurbation, and to provide for all her people healthy and favourable conditions of life, we may expect to see developments in regional planning which are at present unthought-of, and which will only be equalled by those of the neighbouring provinces. Probably t he chief functio n of the national parlianTWrln respect Jo local government N^oiTbe to secure that tTe least progressive and ^weakest of the provinces do not fall ' below' a prescribed minimum of efficiency i in their provision for the public health, their systems of education, their roadways and other matters. But with regard to the supply of water to some of our largest cities the central government must exercise some further control, since these cannot in all cases secure the necessary supphes within the province. Already there are four cases in which such a water supply is taken across our provincial boundaries. The Derwent CONCLUSION 261 Valley Water Board has its gathering-grounds and main reservoirs in the eastern part 6i the High Peak District, in Peakdon ; but it distributes water to Derby, Nottingham and Leicester as well as to Sheffield and to some smaller towns. Birmingham and Liverpool obtain water from gathering-grounds in the Welsh Upland. And Manchester draws part ' of its supply from Thirlmere, which hes beyond the northern boundary of our Lan- cashire Province. Hence the national govern- y{: ment must make provision for these and^* ^ similar cases which may arise. Each of our provinces includes districts among which the density of population varies very widely. Most of them include on the one hand large and densely crowded urban and suburban areas, and on the other a con- siderable extent of thinly peopled and barren upland— areas of great wealth and areas of comparative poverty. But the cities owe a great debt to the regions of difficulty. The harsh and barren uplands, where a scanty population obtains a poor living only by incessant labour, may contribute but httle to the material wealth of the world either of crops or of mines : they are regions whose chief export is men. All of them send down to the lowlands a steady stream of men and women whose physical and mental powers, trained to a high standard of application by />y? / hi 262 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND the nature of their homelands, make them most valuable elements in the population. From Pennine dales and Scottish glens, from the uplands of Wales and Devon and the downlands of the South Country, this fertihzing stream flows down to the lowlands and the great cities, as it has done for generations past. And it is both just and pohtic that some of the wealth created there should be returned to these regions of comparative poverty, in the form of means of communica- tloITby road and i-aiT"^nr^Tl ttte-othef "piibTTc services which should be ^ provided by a provincial government, and, above all, in the form of better and fuller education for their children and adolescents, the_jd£mand forwhich is usuall y far keener in such regions than" it is in the cities ; though the present facilities Tor 'meeting it are much more inadequate. ^ I t is one of the most satis- factoryresuits^of our delimitation"^ England into provinces tliat it does distribute the industrial areas and the regions of difficulty so that these provinces are, on the whole, suitable areas for administration and for self-government froni this point of view, in that each great industrial conurbation is associated with its neighbouring region of difficulty. The London Province is alone in containing a great conurbation without any proportionately large area of scanty population. CONCLUSION 263 A careful study of the preceding pages will have shown that our p rovinces have been delimited in accordance with thejesults^ of the two great shifts of population which we have discussed earher in this volume (Chapter III, pp. 50 to 60). The existingJLocal -goveriL--^ ment divisions are still ^base^^^ the ancient counties, all of which arose belore.one or both of these revolutionary changes in the distribution of the people over the surfjce^. of the country, and before the growth of our.-, great cities ; hence Jhey. are inevitably out of harmony with the present conditions. But the boundaries of the counties have been modified in very many cases, even during the last few years (cf. pp. 48 and 49), and in their present form there is httle of the sanctity of age left to them. Popular sympathies and traditions in any part of the country are more usually associated wfth some natural region than with the existing^ local government areas ; '^ while the ancient \ counties are no longer unit areas' for any ' administrative purposes, and few people know their boundaries. Hence no refusal to consider any serious attempt to sketch out divisions in relation to the existing geographical conditions of the country can be based on any traditional value in the existing divisions or any respect for their boundaries. Finally, we may end, as we began, by insist- 264 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND ing that th£. ^^feHm rT»--f>fte of devolution. We have bee n concern ed with a dehmitation of provinc es; and in Ihis work so many factors have been found to combine harmoniously that we are convinced that the provinces here sketched out are, to a very high degree, natural political divisions, which bear a reasonable relation to the present distribution of the population and the physical features of England. No one of our provinces is either too large or too small, in population or area, for self-government ; and they are so far comparable to one another in these respects that no one of them can possibly dominate the rest. Democracy dema ndsde- volution ; witho ut it, democ rgitic govern^ inent is becoming an impo ssibili ty ; f or ou r single,. Parli ament, like any autocra t "TiT^a similar position, _is_rtoo ove rburdened with multitudinous details to be ^ \ )le to co ptrol the vast and complicat ed n^achinery o f modern government. The establishment of some such provinces would do much to overcome this difficulty and restore that variety in unity, those various regionalisms within one state due to provincial inde- pendence, which have in the past been principal factors in the growth of the characteristic traditions and^ civilization of England. APPENDIX I ^ Population and Area of Each Province The populations given in the tables below are from the census of 191 1. Where the boundary passes through a parish the whole population of that parish has been counted m that of the province in which the village of that name or the greater part of its area is included. Minor hamlets have not been taken into account apart from the parishes. The errors due to this are likely to balance each other fairly well in the large number of cases dealt with, and the figures given represent the actual population on the area of each province at the date of the census very closely. The areas are stated to a less degree of accuracy. The boundaries were transferred from the Half Inch to a Mile map to one on the smaller scale of ten miles to one inch ; and then the area of each of the English Provinces and of the Welsh Province was measured on that map. They are sufficiently accurate for purposes of comparison among tlie provinces; and they are not needed for any other purposes. , ^ . , , Tables {h) and (c) show how the population of each province is made up from those of the counties, and how the population of each county is allotted to the several provinces respectively. Read in the light of the fact that the provincial boundaries are systematic, these tables illustrate the extreme irregularity of the county boun- daries. Some very small parts of the county of Lancaster are allotted to the Yorkshire Province, and two hamlets of the county of Nottingham to Peakdon ; but as no one of these fragments is the greater part of a pansh they do not appear in these tables. ^ APPENDIX I 267 Ireland Scotland Wales London North Engl* Trent Lost Anglia Scuern Yorkshire Central En^l^ Lancashire Dci'on Bristol Wcsscx Peakdon London Lancashire Scotland Ireland Sei'crn Yorkshire North England Trent Bristol East Anglia Peakdon CentrolEnglar^d Wesscx Deuon LondoT\ Lancashire Peakdon Yorkshire Severn North Erigland Wesscx Bristol Trent Wales Central Er^jand Deuon Last Anglia Scotland Ireland nzn 8 ^ 10 II 12 13 14 13 i6 I I I I 1 I I ill! TH i_ I I I I I I ~i — r I I I I I I 1 1 : i. J I I i 1 i z 1 I — n "n~T XI (a) rca in 1000 5^ rtilea il l ! I 1 8 I I I II 1 — n ,». Populafion 3 1 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I n I 1 I i I 1 i I D IZZ3 IZD ic) Densiti^ of Populatiorx in lOO's per Sq Mile. X3 FiG« 13.— Comparisons of the Provinces. in w u 52; > o w H o in *A O H < o a a o s 1^ a o o (/I J -Si K ^ « < 73 ft) u .9 > o a >^ H d ? *- ^S o o ^ S a o 2 .900 Ok 6 o O a o o •T3 t-i o Xi i-i :3c^a;2Sc^w;^H^o uwQ ir> 000 CO n cTi a\ ti <^ '•l-O ro >0 "«1- O 10 lO »o O "*i 000 lOM tv.ir5MO0 »O0 O N fj. ■rt-l-l Qy "^ CTi Qs m ^ >■* fOC* 00 vO oco u-> r* O r^ M mvO 00 '^ *^ t^co O C^N COM cOOnC* Ot^ t^MCO>-tOt-'r» ^ 0^ ^ •-' u-> c> ^ vO 30 vO C^ fO r^ ro c^ vO H o_^ 0_^ CT; 0_^ Cr\ f^^ ^^ -O 00 00 t>^ r^ 10 tC d^ p** « O On ^ ao W ^ — sill ill iilH !|l (—1 • ^ ^ »-^ o • JJ ^ • c ■> rt 00 • .5 C3 ^ -^ 60 rt c O o H r:""-^**:".^--!. F"- -■sEy.-Ji^: .■^s_" "WW 268 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND W POPULATION OF EACH PROVINCE AS OBTAINED FROM THE COUNTIES.' The North Country. Durham . . . 1,369,860 Northumberland . . . . 696,893 Cumberland (part of) 250,389 Westmorland (part of) . . 18,244 York, North Riding (part of) . . . 263,040 Lancashire Province. Yorkshire Province. York, East Riding ,, North Riding (part of) . . ,, West Riding (part of) . . Peakdon. York, West Riding (part of) Derby (part of) . . 2,598,426 Cheshire . . • 954.779 Lancashire . 4.767.832 Cumberland (part of) 15.357 Derby (part of) . . 48,354 Shropshire (parts of) 9,133 Stafford (part of) . 392.809 Westmorland (part of) . 45.331 York, West Riding (parts of) . 40,695 Flint (parts of) . . • • 12,169 6,286,459 432.759 156,506 2,028,564 82,282 2,700,111 969,416 228,560 i,i97»976 * The counties referred to in these tables are the " modern " counties, i.e. the administrative counties with their associated county boroughs. APPENDIX I Severn. Derby (part of) . . Gloucester (part of) Hereford (part of) Leicester (part of) Monmouth (part of) Northampton (part of) . . Oxford (part of ) . . Shropshire (part of) Stafford (part of) Warwick (part of) Worcester (part of) Brecknock (part of) FUnt (part of) Radnor (part of ) . . Trent. Derby (part of) . . Holland (part of) Kesteven . . Leicester (part of) Lindsey . . Northampton (part of) . . Nottingham Peterborough, Soke of (part of) Rutland . . Stafford (part of) Warwick (part of) York. West Riding (parts of) . . Devon, Cornwall . . Devonshire (part of) Somerset (part of) Wessex. Berkshire (part of) Dorset (part of) . . Somerset (part of) Southampton (part of) . . West Sussex (part of) . . Wight, Isle of Wiltshire (part of) 226 26,935 98,840 6,357 671 5.576 633 231,621 . . 876.574 .. 1.037.888 . . 525.660 1,603 356 8,510 2.821,450 406,283 58,998 .. 111,324 . . 470,196 . . 369,787 5,241 604,098 1,143 20,346 78,876 321 6,702 2,133.315 . . 328.098 . . 683,280 5,610 1,016,988 64 205,619 6,137 724.515 31.937 88,186 81.897 1,138,355 269 k- 370 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Bristol Provincb. Devonshire (part of) 16.423 Dorset (parts of) . . 17.647 Gloucester (part of) . 668.687 Hereford (part of) 15.429 Monmouth (part of) 17.618 Somerset (part of) . 446,278 Wiltshire (part of) 112,423 1,294,505 East Anglia Cambridge (part of) 125.984 Ea.st Suffolk 277.155 Essex (parts of) . . 25,711 Hertford (part of) 6.941 Holland (part of) 23,851 Huntingdon (part of) 31,968 Isle of Ely 69,752 Norfolk . . 499,116 Northampton (part of) . 150 Peterborough, Soke of (part of) . . 43,575 West Suffolk 116,905 London Province. 1,221,108 Bedford (part of) 65.955 Berkshire (part of) 58.656 Buckingham (part of) 112.629 East Sussex . 487,070 Essex (part of) . . . 1.325.170 Hertford (part of) 271,026 Kent • 1,045,591 London . . . 4,521,685 Middlesex . 1. 126.465 Southampton (part of) . 93,127 Surrey • 845.578 West Sussex (part of) 144,371 10,097,333 APPENDIX I Central England. Bedford (part of) Berkshire (part of) Buckingham (part of) Cambridge (parts of) Gloucester (part of) Hertford (parts of) Huntingdon (part of) Northampton (part of) Oxford (part of) . . Southampton (part of) Warwick (part of) Wiltshire (part of) Worcester (part of) .. 128,633 212,289 106,922 2.338 40.475 33.317 23.609 . . 292.830 . . 198.636 44,751 2,200 92.502 427 1,178.929 The Welsh Province. Wales • • . . « ,025,202 Deduct, parts of Brecknock, to Severn 1.603 FUnt, to Lancashire 12,169 ,. Severn 356 Radnor to Severn . . 8.510 22.638 382.983 Add, parts of Shropshire . . Monmouthshire 5,553 377,430 i.385.547 271 I 273 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND (c) POPULATIONS OF THE COUNTIES AS ALLOTTED TO THE PROVINCES. Bedford Berkshire Buckingham Cambridge Cheshire Cornwall Cumberland Derby Devon Dorset to Central England London to Central England London Wessex to Central England London to Central England East Anglia . . to Lancashire . . to Devon to Lancashire . . North England to Lancashire . . Peakdon Severn Trent to Bristol Devon to Bristol Wessex . . 128.633 65,955 212,289 58.656 64 106,922 112,629 2.338 .. 125,984 Durham to North England East Riding of York to Yorkshire East Suffolk to East AngUa East Sussex to London Ely. Isle of to East AngUa Essex to East Anglia London 194.588 all all 15.357 250.389 48.354 228,560 226 406,283 16,423 683,280 17.647 205,619 271,009 219.551 128,322 954.779 328,098 265,746 683,423 699.703 223,266 all 1,369,860 all 432.759 all 277.155 aU 487,070 all 69.752 25.711 1.325.170 T ^«ft R8t APPENDIX I 273 Gloucester Hereford Hertford Holland Huntingdon Kent Kesteven Lancaster Leicester Lindsey London Middlesex Monmouth Norfolk Northampton to Bristol Central England Severn to Bristol Severn to Central England East Anglia . . London to East Anglia . . Trent to Central England East Anglia . . to London to Trent to Lancashire . . to Severn Trent to Trent to London to London to Bristol Severn Wales to East Anglia . . to Central England East Anglia . . Severn Trent North Riding of York to North England Yorkshire Northumberland Nottingham Oxford to North England to Trent to Central England Severn Peterborough, Soke of to East Anglia . . Trent 18 668,687 40.475 26,935 15.492 98,840 33.317 6,941 271,026 23.851 58.998 23,609 31.968 all all all 6,357 470,196 all aU aU 17,618 671 377.430 all 292,830 150 5.576 5.241 736,097 114,269 311,284 82,849 55.577 1,045,591 III. 324 4.767.832 476.553 369,787 4,521,685 1,1.26,465 395.719 499.116 263,040 156,506 all all 198,636 633 43.575 1. 143 303.797 419.546 696.893 604,098 199.269 44.718 274 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Rutland Shropshire Somerset Southampton Stafford Surrey Warwick Westmorland to Trent to Lancashire . . Severn Wales to Bristol Devon Wessex to Central England London Wessex to Lancashire . . Severn Trent to London to Central England Severn Trent to Lancashire . . North England all 9.133 231,621 5.553 446,278 5,610 6,137 44.751 93,127 724.515 392,809 876.574 78,876 20,346 246,307 458.025 862,393 1,348.259 all 845,578 2,200 1.037.888 321 ^ 1,040,409 45.331 18,244 63.575 West Riding of York to Lancashire . . Peakdon Trent Yorkshire (including York City) 40.695 969,416 6,702 2,110,846 3.127,659 West Suffolk West Sussex Wight. Isle of Wiltshire Worcester to East Anglia . . to London Wessex to Wessex to Bristol Central England Wessex to Central England Severn Total for England all 116,905 144,371 31,937 all 112,423 92,502 81,897 427 525,660 176,308 88,186 286,822 526,087 34.045,290 Brecknock Flint Radnor APPENDIX I to Severn Wales to Lancashire . . Severn Wales to Severn Wales - . . 1,603 57,684 12,169 356 80,180 8,510 14,080 275 59,287 92,705 22,590 1! 276 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND W Ah < < > 0) G ^ o cu .a T3 ^<5 i1 i 2i 5 S o SJi bO en - TJ • 03 0? « • • frf >; « ^. ? ? UJ J s c> o o o PO t^ in o 'g c4 «^xa o .1: (i^ 8 ;5 a W 6 N I 1 5 I o p P P o to ^ a « <& APPENDIX II 277 O a •a u O ;^ O u p p O u o H P o p 5 a «Bm B en P p^ - 0) S 2 d C/3 p p o u CA B H p a) en en o u U < d 0,3:3 r o « p o U J^ .P bo 9 P Z OC/3 oi S3 - P ^< P «4^ o " ts ■♦-» d d o lo tn ro 00 «0 d o o p 9 >— » 4> O T3 P P R$ 51 5 p o a o > Co p c«-« O re, bO en f« go P Si en P p u ^ tn b CO *tj PQ Xi u O -2 o (X4 V o g CIS .P H ^^ 'O 278 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND There arc also many small gaps in our railway system where the lines of different companies reach the same small town and have separate stations, sometimes without direct connection between them. The dupHcation of stations in such small towns as Aylesbury, Banbury, Cirencester and Wisbech involves a waste of railway staf! and material for which there is no evident com- pensating advantage. It is merely a relic of the age of railway competition, and will necessarily disappear as soon as the railway system is organized primarily to serve the public needs. S: APPENDIX III On the National Water Supply The problem of obtaining a sufficient supply of pure water for the ever-increasing needs of our growing population, with its rising standards of Hfe, like many other vital national problems, has never been treated as a whole. Each city and town has been left very largely to its own devices. But a very slight consideration of the relative positions and capacities of our chief available areas of supply in relation to the positions and needs of the urban areas may yet prevent further confusion and waste. In the southern half of the country W^essex, with its three large towns supplied from deep wells driven down into the natural reservoir of the chalk, and our Central and East Anglian provinces, with their comparatively small populations and few towns, are likely to be able to supply their ow^n needs for a long time to come. But no one of these three provinces contains any extensive area which forms a suitable gathering-ground for a water supply to any urban regions outside their limits. The Bristol Province is in a similar position ; while Devon on the south-western peninsula has a large surplus on good gathering-grounds, but is too far from the great con- urbations for this surplus to be regarded as more than a remote reserve. And it seems clear that within a short time Greater London must go outside the Thames Valley for its water. In the northern half of England the North Country- has within its Hmits areas of rainy uplands sufficient not only to supply all the needs of the inhabitants of that proWnce, but to leave a very large amount available for those to the south of it. To the east of the Pennines the Yorkshire Province may also be able to supply its own needs ; but it is not hkely to have any large available surplus, and it is quite conceivable that the great Yorkshire conurbation ■»79 ill 28o PROVINCES OF ENGLAND may have to go further afield. Peakdon includes the gathering-grounds of the upper Don Valley and those of the Derwent Valley Water Board, and if these were all allotted to the supply of its urban districts it might, hke its northern neighbour, find a sufficient supply within its own boundaries. Elsewhere the great conurbations of Lancashire and of the Trent and Severn Provinces need suppUes which are very much greater than the quan- tities they can conveniently gather near at hand ; and hence they must look to gathering-grounds outside those provinces. This hasty review indicates that our provinces may be grouped into three classes in respect to their needs for water and their power of supplying those needs. There are first those which must depend largely on others for their supplies : these are London, Lancashire, Severn and Trent. The second are those which are able to supply their own needs, but have no sufficient surplus available to allow us to count them as important areas of supply for others : these are East Anglia, Central England, Wessex, Bristol, Peakdon and Yorkshire ; though the last two may, in the near future, pass into the first class. The two remaining provinces in the ends of the land, the North Country and Devon, have a considerable surplus ; but the principal available area of supply is in Central and North Wales. The essential features of a good gathering-ground under present conditions are that it shall be an area of heavy rainfall, impervious subsoil, and scanty population. In the Pennines south of the High Peak, and from near the Aire Gap to Stainmore, the land is mainly limestone ; hence in these two areas the second of the above features is missing, though the other two are present in a high degree. It is for this reason that the Trent conurbation at the southern end of the Pennines cannot obtain a sufi&cient supply from the nearby upland, and that the West Yorkshire conurbation may also have to go further afield. The principal available areas in which all the conditions are satisfied are (i) in the Central Pennines between the High Peak and the Aire Gap, which is none too large for the populations at present depending on it ; APPENDIX III 281 (2) the Lake District and some other parts of the North Country uplands ; (3) the uplands of Exmoor and Dart- moor in the south-western peninsula, and (4) most of the Welsh Upland. The positions of these in relation to the areas of need suggests that the surplus of the Lake District should be allotted to Lancashire ; while the possible needs of West Yorkshire beyond its own sources of supply could be met from the very heavy rainfall on the western slopes of the Pennines in the North Country. The eastward slopes of the northern Pennines and the southward slopes of the Cheviots would naturally be reserved for the dense population of the north-east coast. And if the Bristol conurbation should need to go further than the Mendips and the Ouantock Hills for its supphes, it would evidently obtain the rest of its water from North Devon. This would leave the Welsh gathering-grounds to supply the South Wales and Midland urban regions and Greater London. The eastward slopes of this upland are drained mainly by the Rivers Dee, Severn and Wye, and the most direct and economical lines of aqueduct would be obtained if these three catchment areas were associated respectively with the Trent conurbation (and Peakdon if necessary), the Birmingham area, and Greater London. The Usk Valley and the southward slopes of the upland would be convenient areas of supply for the South Wales towns. These suggestions may be shown in tabular form as under, where the continuous lines show needed supplies and the broken lines, lines of possible future suppUes, so far as these cross our provincial boundaries. Arftas of Surplus. North Country — Lake District Areas of Need. Lancashire West of the Pennines Wales — N. Dee VaUey C. Severn Valley S. Wye Valley Devon — ^ Trent — > Severn — > London London - Self-sufficient Areas. East Anglia Yorkshire Peakdon ' Central England Wessex Bristol 282 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND The extent to which present and future lines of aqueduct must cross any provincial boundaries shows the need for some supervision of the water supply by the central government. Two of the greatest of existing systems of water- works cut across the lines suggested above, where Birmingham draws water from the Elan Valley in the drainage area of the upper Wye and Liverpool from the artificial Lake Vyrnwy in that of the Severn. And without an allotment of the areas of supply on some such broad plan as that sketched out there will inevitably be con- siderable waste in the construction of unnecessary lengths of aqueduct and some confusion of suppUes. INDEX Aaron's Hill, 177 Adlingfleet, 143 Age of Discovery, 67 Aire and Calder Canal, 136 Aire Gap. 93. 118, 280 Aire. R., 127. 143 Aldershot, 205 Aldingbourne, 182 Aldwark, 130 Aid wick, 182 Alton, 120, 131 Alyn. R., 222, 223 Ambergate, 137 Amber, R., 130, 131 ancient universities, 238 Andover, 183 Anglesey, 220 Anglo-Saxon Period, 252 Anglo- Welsh boundary, 156 Anker, R., 151, 152 Anston, 134 Appleby, 103, 250 Appleton Wiske, 102 Aquitaine, 58 Arbury Hill, 153 Arden, Forest of, 87 area, of each province, 20 7 Arkesden, 197 Armthorpe, 134 Am Hill Down, 178 Arrow, R., 225 Arundel, 182 Arun Gap, 182 Arun, R., 208 Ascott, 205 Ashley, 188 Ashley Hill, 205 Ash Magna, 121 Ashover, 130, 131 Ash Parva, 121 associations, voluntary, 107, iii Association, Workers' Educa- tional, III Atherstone, 151, 156 Atterton, 151 Auckley, 135 Ault Hucknall, 133 Australia, 19, 21, 24, 74, 256 Austrey, 151 Avon, R. (Bristol). 64, 186. 187, 190, 191, 192, 209 Avon, R. (Salisbury), 178, 179, 183, 192 Avon, R. (Stratford). 66, 150. 152, 153. 157 Axe Edge, 119, 129 Axe, R., 167, 173, 176. 187, 192 Axholme (Isle of). 142 Axminster, 173 Aylesbury, 215, 278 Aylsham, 201 Badby, 153 Badminton, 214 Bagshot Heath, 205 Bainton, 161, 162 Bake well, 138 Banbury, 86, 278 Barby, 153 Barkway, 197 Barlavington, 182 Barlborough, 134 Barnard Castle, 86, 103, 105 Barnby-on-Don, 135 Barnham, 182 Barnoldswick, 118 Barnsley, 136, 137 Barnstaple, 169 Barrow Hill, 155. 181 Barrow-in-Furness, 12^, 125 Barton, 102 Barton Hill, 207 Barton-on-the-Heath, 154 Barton-under-Needwood, 151 Basingstoke, 179, iSo, 205 Batcombe Hill, 176 Bath. 191 Bawtry, 134 Beacon Hill, 225 Beaminster, 176 Bedford, 196, 211, 213, 214 Bedfordshire, 66 2«3 284 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND I 68. I6y 17-2. 174, Belfast, 257 Bentworth, 181 Berkeley, Vale of, 187 Berkshire, 44, 63, 253 Berkshire Downs, 204, 210 Berkshire Heaths, 236 Berwick-on -Tweed, 100, 113, 116 Beverley, 145, 146 Bicester, 213 Bincknoll. 189 Birmingham, 37, 44, 58. 82. 86, 90, 95, 148, 150, 152, 156, 157, 158. 165, 186, 214. 231, 261, 281, 282 Birmingham University, 88 Bishop's Cannings, Down, 189 Bishop's Castle, 224 Bishop's Caundle, 177 Bishop's Cleeve, 155 Black Country, 148 - Blackdown Hills. 167, Black Edge, 119 Blackmoor, Vale of, 176, 183. 192 Black Mountains, 156, 225 Blackpool. 71, 124 Blackwater, R., 108, 205 Blandford, 174, 183 Blaxton, 135 Bletchley, 213 Blithe, R., 150 Blithe Valley. 120 Blithewood Moat, 150 Blockley, 154 Bockmer Hill, 206 Bognor, 182, 204, 20S Bolsover, 133 Bootle, 104 Border Marches, 114 thorough, 31 boundaries, provincial, 69, 70 Bourn, 195 Bournemouth, 54,71,182,183,184 Bournemouth Bay, 172 Bourne Valley, 179 Bourton-on-the-Hill, 154 Bracewell, 118 Bracknell, 205 Bradford (Wilts), 190 Bradford (Yorks), 91, 145 Bradley, 181 Brandenburg, 75 Brangwyn, 155 Bratton Seymour. 177 Braunston, 153 Braybrooke, 161 Breaden Heath, 121 Brecon. 216 Brendon Hills, 167, 168, 169 Bridgwater, 193 Bridlington, 146 Bridport, 173, 184 Bristol, 32, 44, 45, 60, 91, 95, 171, 175, 178, 186. 187. 190, 191, 193. 214. 240, 281 Bristol Avon, R., 64, 186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 209 Bristol Channel, 55, 168. 187, 188, 216 Bristol Province, 149, 154, 175, 178. 209. 214, 234, 252, 279, 280 Bristol University. 239 British Commonwealth, 74, 256 British Federation, 257 British Isles, 75 British Parliament, 20, 21, 26, 27. lb. 256 Broadway, 154 Broadwindsor, 1 76 Broughton, 222, 223 Broughton-in-Furness, 104 Brownber Edge, 10 1 Bruton, 175 Bryngwyn, 225 Bryn-y-Maen, 225 • Buckingham, 213 Buckinghamshire, 66, 251 Buckland, 197 Burbage (Leicester), 152 Burbage (Wilts), 189 Burghclere, 180 Buriton, 181 Burlescombe, 169 Burnley, 118, 123 Burslem, 82 Burton Hastings, 152 Burton-on-Trent, 39, 44 Butser Hill, 180, 181 Buxton, 119, 129, 138, 191 Calder, R.. 135, 143 Cambrian Mts., 117 Cambridge, 196, 198, 199, 200, - 201, 202, 213, 214 Cambridge (county), 39 Cambridgeshire, 39, 66 Campsall, 136 INDEX 285 Camptson HiU, 156 Cam, R., 196, 197, 198 Canada, 19, 21, 24, 74, 256 Canterbury, 44 capitals, provincial, 69, 72, Ch. V, 249 Cardiff, 91, 190 Cardigan, 216 Carlisle, 82, 109, iii, 112, 113, 250 Carlisle (earldom), 114 Carmarthen, 216 Castle Cary, 174 Castleford, 144 Cavenham, 200 Ceiriog, R., 121, 223 Central England, 149, 153. i54. 160, 187, 194, 204, 205, 236, 241, 249. 254, 279. 280 Central Pennines, 100 Central Wales, 280 Chapel-en-le-Frith, 119, 129 Chard, 192 Chardstock, 247 Charing Cross, 208 Charlton, 188 Charmouth, 173, 176 Chamwood, 148, 151, 164 Char, R., 172 Charwelton, 153 Cheadle, 120 Checkley, 120 Cheltenham, 154, 155, 188, 191 Chepstow, 190 Cherington, 188 Cherwell, R., 153 Cheshire, 45, 76, 108, no, 117, 122, 140, 222 Cheshire Plain, 149 Chester, 32, 44, 58, 60, 124, 223. 250 Chester (earldom), 126 Chesterfield, 137 Chesterton, 195 Cheviot, 92, 100, 281 Chichester, 175, 176, 182, 183, 184 Chilcote, 151 Chiltern Hills, 54, 194, 195. 196, 204, 205, 206, 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 236, 254 Chinley, 119, 137 Chinnor, ao6 Chirk, 223 Chisenbury Camp, 179 Chishall, 197 Church Oakley, 180 Churn, R., 188 ' Churnet, R., 120 Cirencester, 278 Clare Park, 205 Clavering, 197 Clay Cross, 130, 134 Clayton, 136 Cleeve Common, 154 Cleveland, 35, 104, 114, 141, 233 Cley Hill, 178 Cliddesden, 180 Chfton Campville, 151 Cloverly, 121 Clowne, 134 Clun Forest, 225 Clun, R,, 225 Clyro, 225 Coalbrookdale, 157 coalfields, 59 Cocking, 181 Cold Ashby, 153 Collingbourne Kingston, 179 Colly weston, 161, 194 Colne, R., 194, 197 Combe, 180 Commonwealth, 67 Compton Wyniates, 154 Congerstone, 151 Copston Magna, 152 Corndon HiU, 224 Cornwall, 43, 67, 108, 167 Corse Wood Hill, 155 Cotherstone, 47 Cotswolds, 78, 148, 154, 187, 188, 191, 209, 213, 214, 234 Cottonopolis, 126 Council of the North, 66 counties, 27, 31, 38 to 44, 48 county borough. 31, 38, 39, M county patriotism, 80, 82, 246 Coventry, 156 Cowburn Tunnel, 119, 129 Cranborne Chase, 174 Craven, 141 Crewe, 124 Crick, 153 Crickheath Hill, 224 Crockerton, 178 Croft, 106 Cromer, 71 Cromwbll, 23 sir 286 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Crondall, 205 CrcMDkham, 205 Crosby Ravens worth, 48 Cross-in-Hand, 152 Crowle, 142, 143 Croxton, 195 Croydon Hill, 196 Culbone, 168 Cumberland, 43, 104, 109, no, 113, 114, 252 Cumbria, 114 Cumbrian Mts., 52, 100. loi. 109, H7, 250 Dalton, 102 Danes, 64. 113, 141, 158 Dariington, 103, 105, io6 Dartmoor, 281 Daventrv, 153 Dean. Forest of, 155, 187, 190. 191. 193 Deame, R., 128, 135 Dearne Valley, 136 Debden, 197 Dee Estuary. 216, 220, 223 Dee, R., 226, 281 Defence of the Realm Act, 34, 86. Ill, 159 Deira, 141 Denbigh, 216. 223, 226 Derby (town), 61, 137, 150, 163, 165, 166, 214, 261 Derbyshire, 35. 39. 44. 45. 6^. 82, 94, 108, 119. 139. 249, 250 Dereham, 200 Derwent, R.. 119. 129, 130. 131. 137. 163 Derwent Valley, 137 Derwent Valley Water Board, 260, 280 Desborough, 161 detached parts of counties, 247 Devauden, 190 Devizes, 192, 193 Devon (province). 25, 187, 193, 232, 234, 240, 251, 252, 262, 279, 280 Devonian peninsula, 76 Devonshire, 67, 81, 108, 140, 167, 168, 173. 247 Didcot, Newbury and South- aimpton Railway, 180 difficulty, regions of, 261 Dinnington, 134 Discovery, Age of, 67 Divided Parishes Act, 48 Domesday, 61, 125 dominance of England. 18 Doncastcr, 94, 132, 134, 137, 142, 144 Don, R.. 95, 128, 130. 134, 135, 136. 137 Don Valley. 129, i35. 253. 280 Dorchester. 32, 173, 183, 184 Dorset. 52. 64, 173, 247 Dorset Downs, 174 Dorset Heights. 173. 176 Dorset, Vale of. 172 Dovedale. 120. 129 Dove, R., 108. 150, 249 Draycott-in-the-Clay, 151 Driffield, 145 Dublin, 257 Duddon, R., 104 Dungeness, 208 Dunkery Beacon, 168 Dunmail Raise, 104 Dunstable, 206 Dunton, 196 Durham (bishopric), 114 Durham (county), 47, 59, 8i, 105, 107, no, 113, 114, 252 Durham University, iii Dursley, 191 Dymock, 155 Eaglescliffe, 107 Early English Kingdoms, 244 Eartham. 182 East Anglia, 245 East Anglia (kingdom), 62, 194, 202 East Anglia (province), 24, 76, 81, 99, 161, 204. 207, 209, 211, 214, 235, 240, 246, 251, 279, 280 East AngUan Heights, 198, 202 East Coast Route, 144 East Durham, 133 Eastern Counties, 58 East Farndon, 161 East Ham, 32 East Meon, 181 East Midlands, 58, 94, 160, 253 Eastoft, 143 Easton, 189 East Rotford, 132 INDEX 40, 43, 140, 287 East Riding, 39, 143. 145. 146 East SuflFolk, 39 East Sussex, 39 East Tisted, 181 Edale, 129 Edcndalc, loi, 113, n8, 250 Eden, R., loi Eden Valley, no Edge Hill, 154 Edge, the, 148. 153. 154 Edinburgh, 91, 109. n6, 144 Edwinstowe. 132 Eggleston Abbey, 106 Egremont, 103 Elan Valley. 282 Ell Brook, 155 Ellesmere. 121 Ellisfield, 181. 205 Elmton. 134 Eltisley, 195 Elton, 195 Ely, Isle of, 39 England, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 30. 35. 49. 59. 66. 67, 75, 96, 141. 264 English Channel, 193 English Kingdoms, the Early, 244 English Lowland, no, 117, 149, 185, 186, 209, 234 English, spread of, 220 Erewash, R., 163 Ere wash Valley, 83, 165 Eryholme, 102 Esk, R. (Cumberland), 104 Esk, R. (Yorks). T02 Essex, 62, 182 Etherow, R., 119 Evershot, 176 Evesham. 155. 157 Ewshott. 205 Ewya, Vale of, 156 Exe, R., 167, 168. 169 Exeter, 44, 58, 170, 240 Exmoor, 167, 168, 171. 281 Ey worth. 196 Fairford, 214 Fareham, 175 Farleigh Hill, 180, 181 Farnborough, 205 Farnham, 205 Farway Hill, 170 federal government. 25 Federations, 256 Fenland, 64, 66, 78, 134, 148; 161, 162, 194. 195, 198, 199. 202, 209, 254 Fens, 245 Flamborough Head, 146 Flash. 120 Fleet, 205 FHntshire. I2i, 126, 220. 222, 226 Flockton. 135. 136 Fockerby, 143 Forelands, Kentish, 208 Forest of Arden, 87 Forest of Dean, 155, 187. 190, 191. 193 Forth. 92 Fosse Way, 152. 154 France, 241 France (departments). 23 Frome, 191 Frome. R. (Dorset), 172, 183 Frome. R.. of Stroud, 188 Froxfield, 181 Fulham, 32 Furness, 112 Fylde, 125 garden suburbs, 54 Garthorpe, 143 Garway Hill, 155 gathering-grounds, 279, 280, 281 Gatherley Moor, 102 G.C.R., 129, 133. 153 Geddes. Professor, 91 G.E.R.. 200, 201 German Empire, 19, 75 Germany. 241, 243 Giddings, 195 Gilmorton, 152 Glamorgan, 216, 226 Glapwell, 133 Glascwm Hill, 225 Glasgow, 91 Glossop, 35. 119 Gloucester, 44. 155, 191. I93 Gloucestershire. 44. 45. 66, I9i> 216, 251 Gloucester, Vale of, 187 G.N.R., 199. 207 Godmanchester. 195 Goole, 142 ^ Goring. 215 ^ ,=., ■0>r^.M'Mi,f *#«> i:awSiiiSM0!»rt>»*s-riW "'•i^-r 288 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Gosforth, 104 Gotherington. 155 Goyt. R., 119 Graig Serrerthin. 156, 189 Grand Junction Canal, 206 Grand Union Canal, 153 Gransden, 195 Graveley, 195 Great Britain. 75 Greater London, 70, 97 • ^52, 279, 281 Great North Road, 92, 93. 102, 134. M4 Great Ouse, R.. 66, 195, 196, 209, 253 Great Smeaton, 102 Grimsby 164, 165. 166 Guilden Morden, 196 Gwaunceste Hill, 225 G.W.R., 154, 169. 214 Hadfield, Sir Robert, 241 Halifax, 145 Hallamshire, 141 Hampden, 206 Hampshire, 39, 63, 108 Hampshire Basin, 99, 172, 174, 178. 185, 210 Hampshire Downs, 179. 180, 204 Hampstead, 54 Hankerton, 188 Hannington. 180 HardA\nck. 131, 133 Hardy, Thomas, 185 Harris Bridge, 151 Hartford, 195 Harthill, 134 Hartington, 130 Han^'ich, 198, 204. 208 Hasfield, 155 Hassop, 138 Hatfield (Herts), 32 Hatfield (Yorks), 142 Hatley, 196 Haw Bridge, 155 Hawes Junction, 118 Hawkchurch, 247 Hawkcombe Head, 168 Hay, 225 Hayling, 63 Hedon, 147 Hellidon, 153 HelUfield, 118 Helmsley, 32 Heraingford Abbots, 195 Hemsworth, 136 Hengoed, 224 Henham, 197 Henry VHI, 67 Hereford. 32, 37, 158 Hereford Basin, 155. »57. 225 Herefordshire, 216 Herriard, 181, 205 Hertfordshire, 66, 81 Higham-on-the-Hill, 1 5 2 High Cross, 152 High Peak District, 95, 128, 137, 253, 261, 280 Highworth, 214 Hillfield, 177 Hinckley, 39, 152, 164 Hinxworth, 196 Hitchin, 207, 215 Holcombe Rogus, 169 Holderness, 141. 142, 143, 144. M5. H7 Holland, 39, 251 Holme, R., 135 Holmfirth, 135 Holnest, 177 Holton, 177 Holwick, 47 Home Rule, 17, 18 Honiton, 170 Hook Hill, 188 Hook Norton, 154 Homingsham, 178 Huddersfield, 136, 145 Hull. 44, 143, 145. 241 Humber, 64, 79, 92, 142, M4/ ^60 Humberhead, 134 Hunderthwaite, 47 Huntingdon, 195 Huntingdon (county), 41, 66, 251 Hurley, 206 Husband's Bosworth. 153 Hyssington, 224 Ibworth, 180 Ightfield, 121 Ilminster, 192 Industrial Revolution, 55, 38, 115, 164, 165 Industrial towns, 60 Ingleby Arncliffe, 102 Inkpen Hill. 179, 180 Ipstones, 120 Ipswich, 199, 202 INDEX 289 Ireland, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 75, 207, 217, 257 Irt, R., loi, 104 Irwell. R., 119 Isbourne Valley, 154 Ise, R., 153, 161 Itchen, R., 180, 183 Ivel, R., 196 Ivinghoe, 20O Jutes, 245 Kelshall, 196, 197 J^emplcy, 155 Kempster's Hill, 224 Kendal, 103, 125. 250 Kennet, Vale of, 180, 204, 209, 210 Kennett Valley, 64, 86, i8y Kent, 39. 62, 63, 182, 245, 252 Kentish Forelands, 208 Kent. Vale of, 208 Kerry Hill, 225 Kesteven, 39, 41 Kettering, 212 Kilmington, 177 Kilsby, 153 Kingsclere, 180 King's Lynn, 199, 202 King's Wood, 189 Kirkby Stephen, 103 Lackford, 200 Lady Cross, 119 Lake District, 71, 112, 281 Lancashire Combination, 82 Lancashire (count}'), 4.5, 54, 58, 81. 93. 104. io^> ii<^' 125, 127, 140, 229, 223, 240, 265 Lancashire (province), 24, 35, 60, 76, 80, 104, 109. 112. 129, 135. 137. 141. 148. 150. 160. 207, 223, 232, 234, ^po, 231, 260, 261, 280, 281 Land's End, 171 Langley. 197 Langrish, 181 Langstone, 63, 175 language question. 221 Lartington, 47 Lasham, 181 Laughton-en-le-^Iorthen. 134 LB. t";' S.C.R., 181, 182 Leadon. R.. 155 Leagrave, 207 Lea, R., 66, 206 Lechlade. 214 Leckham Hill. 188 Leeds, 58, 91, 98, 94. 05> 107. 109. 112, 116, 128, 135, 145, 146. 147, 186, 233, 249 Leen, R., 1O3 Leicester, 61. 94. 163. 164, 165, 166, 261 Leicestershire, 39, 42, 66, 94, 151 Leigh, 120 Letch worth, 54 Leven, R., 102 Lichfield, 157 Lincoln, 44, 47, 164. 165. 166, 254 Lincoln Gap, 160 Lincolnshire, 39, 42, 94, 140, 160 Lindsey, 39, 142 Litchfield. 180 Littlemore, 215 Liverpool, 58, 71, 91, 96. 122, 186. 233, 261. 282 Llanbister, 225 Llandudno, 71 Llanfihangel-nant-Melan, 225 Llanvaches, 190 Llanyblodwell, 224 Llanymynech, 224 Llowes, 225 L. & N.W.R., 153, 206, 213. 225 Local Government Act (1888), 44 Loddon Gap, 179, 180 Loddon, R., 204, 205 London, 35, 37, 54, 55, 58, 66, 82, S8. 89, 90, 96. 97, 99. no, 141, 144, 171. 1S4, 1S6, 208, 211, 212, 214. 231. 235, 236, 237. 240. 259 London Basin, 99, iSo, 194, 204, 209, 210, 252 London-by-the-Sea, 182, 208 London (county), 39, 40. 43. 59. 108, 246 London. Port of, 54 London (province), 76, 122, 137, 1S2, 196, 19S. 209, 210, 212, 234. 249. 252, 262, 2S0 London University, 240 Long Burton, 177 Long Compton, 154 Longleat. 17S Long Mountain, 224 19 290 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND I^ng Newnton, i88 Longnor, 130 Long Stowe, 196 Lower Kinnerton, 222 Lower Tean, 120 Lower Thames Basin, 205 Lowestoft, 199, 202 L.& S.W.R., 170, 177, 180 Luddington. 143 Lugg, R.. 225 LuUington, 151, 250 Lundy Island, 171 Lunedale (Yorks), 47 Lune. R. (Lanes), loi Luton, 206 Lutterworth, 152 Lydham, 224 Lyme Regis, 173, 176 Lynton, 171 Lype Hill, 168 Macclesfield, 123 Mackinder, Mr., 90 Madeley, 121 Maer, 121 Maiden Bradley, 178 Maidenhead, 205 Maiden Newton, 173 Malcolm of Scotland, 114 Malham, 118 Malmesbury, 193 Malmesbury, Vale of, 188 Maltby, 134 Manchester, 58, 71, 90, 91, 93. 96, 109, 112, 116, 119, 123, 124, 127, 129, 137, 165, 186, 231, 233, 261 Manningtree, 197 Mansfield, 132 Maperton, 177 Mapperton Hill, 177 market-area, 85 Market Drayton, 121 Market Harborough, 163 Marlborough, 210 Marlow, 205 Marsh wood, 176 Marsh wood, Vale of, 173 Marton, 224 Matlock, 130, 137, 138, 191 Medmenham, 206 Medstead, 181 Mendips, 55, 192, 281 Meon, R., 180 Meon Valley, 181 Mercia, 64, 141, 158. I94. 254 Merioneth, 216 Merryton Low, 120 Mersey, R., 108, 123 MetropoUtan PoHce Area, 33, 207 M. & G.N. Jt. R., 200, 201 Mickleton, 47 Middlesbrough, 107, 112, 116 Middlesex, 39 Middleton Tyas, 102 Middletown, 224 Midland counties, 64 Midland Gate, 88, 117 Midlands, 78 Midland Valley of Scotland, 100 Milborne Port, 177 Mildenhall. 200 Millom, 104 minimum population, 73 modern universities, 237 Monmouth, 189, 193 Monmouthshire, 35, 189, 190, 216, 220, 221, 226 Monnow, R., 155. 189, 190 monoglots, 218 Montgomery, 216 Monyash, 129 Morborne, 195 Morecambe Bay, 124, 250 Moreton-in-the-Marsh, 154 Morridge Top, 120 Moulton, 162 M.R., 207 M. &S.W. Jt. R., 129. 137. 214 Nailsworth, 191 Naseby, 153 national parliaments, 18 Need wood, 150 Nen, R., 66, 153, 161, 195. 209, 211, 253 Newborough, 151 Newbury (Berks), 86, 210 Newcastle-on-Tyne, 44, 58, 60, 61, 82, 91, 93. 95. 107. 109. Ill, 112, 116. 231 New England, 60 Newent, 155 New Forest, 184 Newfoundland, 21, 74 Newmarket, 200 New Mills, 35 INDEX 291 Newnham Hill, 196 Newport, 190 Newsham, 102 Newtown, 86 New York, 97, 231 New Zealand, 21, 74 Nice, 184 Nore Hill, 182 Norfolk, 45, 81, 140, 194. 201 Norman Conquest, 87, 114 Normandy, 58 Norsemen, 113 Northallerton, 103, 144, 146 Northallerton Gate, 92, 102, 103, 144 Northampton, 61, 211, 213, 241 Northampton (county), 39,41.1 94 Northampton Heights, 148, 153, 160, 161 Northamptonshire, 39, 66, 94 Northchurch, 206 North Country, 66, 81, 92, 100 North Devon, 281 North Downs, 54, 55. 204, 205 North-east Coast, 100 North-eastern League, 82 North-eastern Railway, 102 North England, 35, 76, 117, 121, 141, 144, 231, 233, 234, 250, 251, 279. 280, 281 North Riding, 39. 4°. 45. 47. loi, 104, 105, 107, 113, 140, 143. 146 North Stafford Railway, 120, 150 Northumberland, 43, 107, no, 113, 114, 140. 252 Northumbria, 92, 113, 141, 245, 250 North Wales, 60, 280 North York Moors, 100, 102, 142. 143 Norton, 107 Norton- j uxta-T wycross, 1 5 1 Norwich, 44, 61, 99. i99. 200, 201, 202, 241, 249 Nottingham, 44, 60, 61, 83, 93. 94, 95. 128, 130, 132. 163. 164, 165, 166, 186, 214, 240, 241, 251, 261 Nottingham, (county) 49. 66, 82, 94. 133. 134. 265 Nottingham Hill, 154, I55 Nottingham University College 349 Notton, 136 Nuneaton, 151, 152, 156 Olchon Valley, 156 Oldbury Hill, 189 Oldham, 119 Old Sulehay, 194 OUerton, 132 * open ' areas, 51 Orcop Hill, 155 Orton, 151 Osmotherley, 102 Oswestry, 158, 223 Otterburn, 118 Otter, R., 170 Oundle, 86 Ouse, R. (Yorks), 144 Ouse, R. Great, 66, 195, 196, 209, 253 Ouse Valley, 143 Overton, 220 Oxford, 44. 98, 108, 211, 213. 214 Oxfordshire, 44, 45, 140 Oxford Basin, 209, 210, 211 Pagham, 182 Painley Hill, 150 Pandy, 156 parish, 31, 40, 46, 47, 48 parUament, British, 19, 20, 22 parliament, English, 19 parliament, federal, 19 parliaments, German, 19 parliaments, national, 18 parliaments, provincial, 26, 27, 28, 259 parliaments, ranks of, 21 patriotism, county, 80, 82, 246 Pauntley, 155 Peak 119 Peak District, High, 95. 128, 137. 253. 261, 280 Peakdon, 95. 121, 141, 142, i43. 148, 160, 163, 191. 233, 234, 253, 261, 265, 280 Peak Forest, 129, 130 Pembroke, 216 Penhow, 190 Penistone, 135 Pennine, 52, 54, 78, 93. io9. 117, 122, 127. 131. 135. 142, 143. 144. 233. 250. 279, 280 Pennine dales, 78, 262 Penyghent, ii8 292 PROVINCES OF ENGLAND Penzance, 170, 171 Peterborough, 199, 200, 201, 202 Peterborough, Soke of, 39, 41 Petersfield, 180 Pewsey, Vale of, 179, 187, 189, 192 Pickering, Vale of, 102, 142, 143 Piercebridge, 106 Pilsley, 131 Plymouth, 99, 170. 171, 193, 241 Pontefract, 144 Poor Law Unions, 32, 34, 40 population map, 56, 57, 71 population, minimum, 73 population, of each province, 267 population, universities in pro- portion to, 241, 243 Porlock Bay, 168 Portland, 172 Port of London, 54 Portsmouth, 182, 183, 184 Potteries, 120, 122, 124, 148, 150 Potto, 102 Preston, 109, 116 Princes Risborough, 206 Priors Marston, 153 Privett, 181 proportion of universities to population, 241, 243 provinces, area of, 267 provinces, standard of, 23 provinces, uniformity of, 23, 72 provincial boundaries, 69, 70 provincial capitals, 69, 72, Ch. V, 249 provincialism, 230 provincial parliament, 26, 27, 28, 259 Prussia, 19, 75 Pulford, 222 Purbeck, 172 Quantocks, 281 Quendou, 197 Radnor, 216, 220, 221 Radnor Forest, 225 railways, 25 Ramsdean Down, 181 Rangemore, 151 Ravenglass, 103 Raymond's Hill, 176 Reading, 44, 108, 210, 211, 240, 341 Redcar, 107 Red Horse, Vale of. 154, 158 Reed, 196, 197 regions of difficulty, 261 Registration Areas, 32, 40 Renascence, 67 Rhee, R., 196 Rhewl, 223 Rhineland, 75 Rhymney, R., 220, 221 Ribble, R., 125, 126 Ribblesdale, 80, n8 Ribble Valley, 122 Richmond-on-Swale, 103 Richmondshire, 114 Ridgewell, 197 Ridgmont, 215 Ripton, 195 Risborough, 206 Riviera, 184 Roade Junction, 213 Robin Hood's Bay, 103, 113, 116 Rockingham Forest, 161 Rodmarton, 1S8 Roggiett, 190 Romaldkirk, 47 Romans, 244 Romney Marsh, 63 Ross, 155 Rossendale Forest, 122 Rotherham, 94, 137 Rother, R., 128, 131, 181 Rother Valley, 131 Rowsley, 137 Rowthorn, 133 Royston (Herts), 32, 197 Royston (Yorks), 136 Ruabon, 223 Rugby, 157 rural district, 31, 34, 40, 48 Rushden, 212 Rutland, 41, 43, 49, 66, 81, 94 Ryde, 183 vSaddle worth, 119 Saffron Walden, 197, 201 Salford, 122 Salisbury, 64, 174, 183, 184 Salisbury Avon, R., 178, 179, 183, 192 Salisbury Plain, 64, 177, 179 Saltburn, 107 Saltney Ferry, 222 INDEX 295 Sampford Arundel, 169 Sandhurst, 205 Sandon, 197, 207 Sandycroft, 222 Sapperton, 188 Sawtry, 195 Scafell Pike, 104 Scarborough, 103 Scarclifife, 133 school district, 237 Scilly Isles, 112, 171 Scotch Corner, 102, 144 Scotland, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 35, 75. 76. 91. loi, no, 115, 122, 126, 207, 216, 229, 256 Scottish glens, 262 Sealand, 223 Seascale, 125 Sedbergh, 103 Selattyn, 224 Selby, 144 Sellafield, 113, 116 Selsey, 172, 175, 208 Selwood, 64 Sence, R., 151 Settle, 118 Severn Estuary, 5^, 88, 186, 187, 189, 190 Severn (province), 35, 90, 160, 166, 187, 189, 190, 209, 212, 221, 234, 240, 250, 252, 253, 280 Severn, R., 55, 121, 122, 148, 149, 150, 152, 155, 224, 225, 281, 282 Severn Tunnel Junction, 190 Severn Valley, 66, 79, 149, 157, 220, 224 Shap, loi, III Shavington, 121 Sheepy Magna, 151 Sheepy Parva, 151 Sheffield, 45, 58, 91, 93, 94, 95, 128, 129, 130, 135, 136. 137, 13S, 139. 186, 231, 233, 250, 253, 261 Sheffield University, 239 Sherborne, 174, 177 Sherwood, 132, 134 Shipston-on-Stour, 158 Shrewsbury, 158 Shrewsbury, Vale of, 225 Shropshire, 37, 216, 220, 224 Sibbertoft, 153, i6i Sibson, 151 Sidmouth, 1 70 Silesia, 75 Skelmanthorpe, 135, 136 Slindon, 182 Snead, 224 Soar, R., 66, 152, 164 Somerset, 44, 64, 167, 168, 174, 176, 186, 191, 192 Somerset and Dorset Railway, 177 Somerset Plain, 249 South Africa, 74 Southampton, 44, 58, 99, 171, 175, 182, 183, 184, 185, 193, 240, 241, 249 Southampton (county), 39, 86, 251 South Bank, 107 South Downs, 63, 64, 175, 181, 208 Southern Uplands of Scotland, 100 South Lancashire, 38, 60, 96, 117, 119 South Midland, 209, 253 Southport, 124 Southumbria, 164 South Wales, 91, 226, 281 Spalding, 162 Springhead, 119 Spurn Head, 147 Stafford, 157 Staffordshire, 37, 39, 44» 66, 79, 108, 120, 250 Stainmore Pass, 109, 113, 280 Stalbridge, 177 Stamford, 41, 161, 165 Standedge, 119 Stanley, 131 Stapeley Hill, 224 Staple Hill, 169, 171 Startforth, 105 Staunton, 155 Staverton, 153 St. Bees Head, 101 Stevenage, 207 St. Ives, 201 St. Martin's Moor, 121 Stockport, 45 Stockton-on-Tees, 103, 105, 107 Stoke Abbott, 176 Stoke-on-Trent, 82, 120, 124, 150 Stone, 120 294 PROVlNCi:^ OF ENGLAND stone Hill, i88 Stoner Hill, i8i Stour, R., of Dorset, 174, 183 Stour, R., of East Anglia, 194. 197. 198 Stour. R., of Warwick. 154 Stourton. 177 Stoiirton Caundle. 177 Stratford Avon, R.. 66, 150, 152, 153. 157 Stratford-on-Avon. 158 Strathclyde, 113, 250 Stretton, 131 Stroud, 191 Stukeley, 195 Sturminster Newton, 174 Suffolk. 39. 45. 81, 194 Surrey. 39. 63, 81. 108. 252 Surrey, Vale of. 20S Sussex, 38. 39, 62, 63. 64, 175, 182. 245, 246 Sussex, Vale of. 208 Sutton, 182 Swatfham. 200 Swaledale. loi, 102 Swale. R.. 102 Swansea. 243 Swift. R., 153 Swindon. 189. 211. 214 Switzerland, 74, 217 Tadmarton, 154 Tamar, R., 108 Tame, R., 151, I57 Tame, R. (Lancashire), 119 Tame Valley, 156 Tarn worth, 156 Tansley, 130 Taunton, 168, 169 Taunton. Vale of, 192 Tean. R., 120, 150 Teesdale, 102. 104 Tees, R., 10 1. 108 Tecs-side. 107 Tees Valley, no Tees Valley Water Board. 107 Telegraph Hill, 207 Teme. R., 225 Temple Combe, 177 Test. R., 183 Tetbury. 188, 191, I93 Tewkesbury, 130 Thame. 215 Thames and Severn Canal. 188 Thames Estuary. 208 Thames Gap, 210 Thames. R.. io8, 149. 188, 196. 204, 20.5. 209. 214, 253, 254 Thames Valley, 55, 58. 213. 279 Thanet, Isle of, 208 Therfield, 196 Thctford, 200, 202 Thirlmere. 261 Thorne, 142 Tibshelf, 131 Tickhill. 134 Tidcombe, 179 Tilstock. 121 Tittensor. 120 Todmorden, 118 Tone, R., 168. 169 Toseland. 195 Tothy, R., 189 Totley Tunnel, 129, 138 township, 46 Trelleck, 180 ' Trent Basin, 94 Trentham, 120 Trent Province, 130, 131, 142, 148, 149. 132. 153. 194. 209. 234, 240, 249, 253, 280 Trent, R., 66. 119, 121, 127, 130, 130, 160 Trent, Vale of, 55, 132 'Trent Valley, 79. 122, 128. 148, 150. 157. 250 Tring, 206 Truro. 170 Tudor Period, 67, 87 Tud, R., 200 Twycross, 151 Tvne Gap, 109. no, 113 Tyne. R., 92 Tyneside, 92, 116, 186 Ugley. 197 Ulverston. 104 Undy. 190 uniformity, of provinces, 23, 72 Unions, Poor Law, 32, 34, 40 United Kingdom, 18, 76, 241. 243 universities, ancient. 238 universities, modern. 237 universities, proportion to popu- lation, 241, 243 University Colleges, 240 University of Birmingham, 88 University of Bristol, 239 INDEX 295. University of Durham, in University of London, 240 University of Sheffield, 239 university region, 237, 241 Upavon, 1 79 Upper Boddington, 154 Upper Thames Basin, 1 88, 203, 209 Upper Thames Valley, 64, 98 Upper Wootton. 180 Upton, 136, 131 Upton Bishop, 133 Upton Scudamore, 178 urban district, 31. 34, 48 Ure. R., loi U.S.A., 19. 74. 241. 243. 236 Usk, R., 220 Usk Valley, 281 Uttoxeter, 1 50 Vale of Berkeley, 187 Vale of Blackmoor^ 172, 174, 176, 183. 192 Vale of Dorset, 172 Vale of Evesham, 153 Vale of Ewya, 136 Vale of Gloucester, 187 Vale of Kennet, 180, 204, 209, 210 Vale of Kent, 208 Vale of Malmesbury, 188 Vale of Marshwood, 173 Vale of Pewsey, 179, 187, 189, 192 Vale of Pickering. 102, 142, 143 Vale of Red Horse, 134, 138 Vale of Shrewsbury, 223 Vale of Surrey, 208 Vale of Sussex, ~2o8 Vale of Taunton, 192 Vale of Trent, 55, 132 Vale of Wardour, 174 Vale of Worcester, 133 Vale of York, 33, 93, 107, 113, 141, 143, 144 valley a unit, 78 valleyward migration, 60 valley ward migration, check to, 3 3 Venn Cross. 169 Ventnor, 183 Via Gellia. 130 voluntary associations, 107. iii Vyrnwy. Lake. 282 Vyrnwy, R., 223, 224 Wadworth, 134 Wakefield. 146 Wakerley, 161 Wales, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 35, 66, 67, 73. 76, 114, 122, 126, 137, 156, 171, 187, 189, 216, 229, 257 Walton, 133 Wansford, 193 ward, 31 Wardour, Vale of, 174 Warmington , 195 Warminster, 178, 179 Warren Corner, 181 Warren Hill, 223 Warwickshire. 37, 39, 44, 45, 66, 140, 131 Wasdale, 104 Wash, 79, 148, 149, 160, 161, 196, 210 Wast Water, 10 1 watershed boundaries, 77 water-supply, 260 W^atling Street, 132 Watlington (East Anglia), 200 Watlington (Oxon.), 213 Weald, 63, 64, 180, 204 Wealden Heights, 208 Weardale, 106 Wear, R.. 106 Welland, R., 133, 160, 161, 162 Wellingborough, 212 W^lls, 192 Welsh, distribution of. 217, 218 W^elsh Marches, 66, 216 Welsh Nationalism, 217 Welshpool, 224 Welsh Province, 130, 223, 226, 263 Welsh Upland, 117, 149, 223, 261, 262, 281 Wei ton, 133 Wendover, 206 Went wood, 190 Wessex Downs, 204 Wessex (kingdom), 62, 64, 175, 243. 234 Wessex (province), 187, 189, 193, 204. 203, 209, 233, 246, 231, 279, 280 West Bretton, 136 Westbury, 178 West Country, 232 West Dorset, 172, 176, 184 Westergate, 182 West Haddon, 133 296 PROVINCES or ENGLAND Westhay Hill, i6i West Midland Division, I59 West Midlands. 35. 86, 88, 149, 159. 253 Westmorland^ 43. 48, loi, 103, 104, 110, 113, IT4, 250, 252 West of England, 95. 186, 187, 193. -52 Weston, 207 Weston Ebb, 170 Weston Rhyn, 121, 223, 224 West Riding, 39, 40. 45. 59. 93, 107, 112, 119, 135. 136, 140, 142, 143, 145. 146 West Rounton Gates, 102 West Saxons, 158 West Suffolk, 39, 49 West Sussex, 39 Weymouth, 183 Wey. R., 181, 203 Wheddon Cross, 168 Whichford, 154 Whitby, 103 Whitchurch (Hants), 86 Whitchurch (Salop), 121 Whitehaven, 10:^, 116 WTiitmore, 121 Whitwell. 134 Whorlton, 102 Wichnor, 151 Widdington, 197 Wight, Isle of, 39. 172. 182 Willesden, 32 Willey, 152 Wiltshire, 64, 191, 251 Wimbish, 197 Wincanton, 174, 177 Winchcomb, 154 Winchester, 32, 183. 184 Windsor, 205 W^inwick, 153 Wisbech, 201, 278 With am, 160 Withernsea, 147 Wollaston, 224 Wolverhampton, 32 Wolvey, 152 Wonastow, 189 Woodhay, 180 Woodhead, 119, 129. i35 Woolley, 136 Woore, 121 Wootton Bassett, 188, 193 Wootton Rivers, 189 Wootton St. Lawrence, 180 Worcester, 44, 155, i57 Worcester (county), 37. 44. 45. 66 Workers' Educational Associa- tion, III Worksop, 132, 134, 163 Wormleighton, 154 Worth en, 224 Worthy Hill, 188 Worting, 180 Wrekin, 148, 157 Wrexham, 223 Wycliffe, 106 Wye, R., 155, 224, 225, 281, 282 Wye Valley (Derbyshire), 129, 137. 138 Wye Valley (Welsh Upland). 189, 190, 220, 224 Wylye, R.. 178 Wyton, 195 Yarmouth, 45, i99 Yarwell, 195 Yateley Common, 205 Yelling, 195 Yeovil, 173, 192 York (city), 44. 45. 59, 60, 143. 144. 145. 146 York (kingdom), 113. 141. 230 Yorkshire, 38, 39, 45. 47. 54. 59. 66. 81, 82, 88, no, 118, 126, 135. 139, 140. 229. 233, 246, 250 Yorkshire (province). 80, 109, 121, 137. 148. 160, 233. 251, 265, 279, 281 York, Vale of. 55. 93. io7. ii3. 141. 143. 144 York Wolds, 52, 142, 143, i44. 145 Youlgreave, 130 Yoxall, 151 m Printed in GreaL Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE QRBSHAM TRESS. 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