Dunbartonshire

Coordinates: 55°58′N 4°32′W / 55.96°N 4.53°W / 55.96; -4.53

Dunbartonshire (Siorrachd Dhùn Bhreatainn in Gaelic) or the County of Dumbarton is a lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde.

It was a county used as a primary unit of christophelocal government with its cntre at the town of Dumbarton. In 1975 the administration section was transferred to the Council.

The area had been previously been part of the historic district of Lennox, which was a duchy in the Peerage of Scotland related to the Duke of Lennox.

Name

Dumbarton comes from the Scottish Gaelic Dùn Breatainn meaning "fort of the Britons".

Historically, the spelling of the county town and the county were not standardised. By the 18th century the names "County of Dunbarton" and "County of Dumbarton" were used interchangeably.

Different county bodies used the two spellings: the Dunbarton County Constabulary were formed in 1857 by the Commissioners of Supply for the County of Dunbarton.

Dumbartonshire (Parliament of Scotland constituency)

Before the Acts of Union 1707, the barons of the shire of Dumbarton elected commissioners to represent them in the unicameral Parliament of Scotland and in the Convention of the Estates.

From 1708 Dumbartonshire was represented by one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of Great Britain.

List of shire commissioners

References

See also

Dunbartonshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Dunbartonshire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of Great Britain (at Westminster) from 1708 to 1801 and of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (also Westminster) from 1801 to 1950. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) using the first-past-the-post voting system.

Boundaries

The constituency was created to cover the county of Dumbarton (later Dunbarton) minus any parliamentary burgh or part thereof within the county. From 1832 to 1918, however, under the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1832, the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 and the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the boundaries of counties and burghs for purposes of parliamentary representation were not necessarily those for other purposes.

The Representation of the People Act 1918 brought constituency boundaries generally into alignment with local government boundaries established under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 and subsequent related legislation, but there were later changes to local government boundaries which were not reflected in new constituency boundaries until 1950, the same year that the Dunbartonshire constituency was abolished, under the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949.