Civil parishes in England

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is an administrative parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish.

A civil parish can range in size from a large town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a whole city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a civil parish may be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish. As at 31 December 2010 there were 10,479 parishes in England.

On 1 April 2014, Queen's Park became the first civil parish in Greater London. Before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough.

History

Ancient origins

The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the manorial system: parishes and manors often covered the same area and had the same boundaries. The manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed increasingly from the Lord of the Manor to the parish's rector, who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or the (often well-endowed) monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local (vestry-administered) charities are well-documented.

Civil parishes in Scotland

Civil parishes in Scotland, as units of local government, were abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929. The geographical area is sometimes still referred to, however, for statistical purposes. (See List of civil parishes in Scotland). A new system of communities was created by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 but, unlike in parish councils in England and community councils in Wales, Scottish community councils have no statutory powers, although in some cases local councils have a legal obligation to include them in consultation exercises.

Civil parishes in Scotland can be dated from 1845, when parochial boards were established to administer the poor law. While they originally corresponded to the parishes of the Church of Scotland, the number and boundaries of parishes soon diverged. Where a parish contained a burgh, a separate landward parish was formed for the portion outside the town. Until 1891 many parishes lay in more than one county. In that year, under the terms of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, the boundaries of most of the civil parishes and counties were realigned so that each parish was wholly within a single county. In 1894 the parochial boards were replaced by more democratically elected parish councils. These were in turn abolished in 1930, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929. Although civil parishes have had no administrative role since that date, they have continued to exist. They were used to define some of the local authorities created by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, they continue to be used for census purposes and they are used as part of the coding system for agricultural holdings under the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) used to administer schemes within the Common Agricultural Policy. According to the website of the General Register Office for Scotland, there are now 871 civil parishes.

Civil parishes in Ireland

Civil parishes (Irish: paróistí sibhialta) are units of territory in the island of Ireland that have their origins in old Gaelic territorial divisions. They were adopted by the Anglo-Norman Lordship of Ireland and then by the Elizabethan Kingdom of Ireland, and were formalised as land divisions at the time of the Plantations of Ireland. They no longer correspond to the boundaries of Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland parishes, which are generally larger. Their use as administrative units was gradually replaced by Poor Law Divisions in the 19th century, although they were not formally abolished. Today they are still sometimes used for legal purposes.

Origins

The Irish civil parish was based on the Gaelic territorial unit called a túath orTrícha cét. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Anglo-Norman barons retained the tuath, later renamed a parish or manor, as a unit of taxation. The civil parish was formally created by Elizabethan legislation. Accounts were kept of income and expenditures for each parish including pensions and poor relief. Statutes were based on ecclesiastical parishes, although it is not known how well-defined such parishes were.