Northamptonshire County Cricket Club

Northamptonshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Northamptonshire. Its limited overs team is called the Northants Steelbacks – a reference to the Northamptonshire Regiment which was formed in 1881. The name was supposedly a tribute to the soldiers' apparent indifference to the harsh discipline imposed by their officers. Founded in 1878, Northamptonshire (Northants) held minor status at first but was a prominent member of the early Minor Counties Championship during the 1890s. In 1905, the club joined the County Championship and the team was elevated to major status as an official first-class team. Northants has been classified as a List A team since the beginning of limited overs cricket in 1963; and as a major Twenty20 team since 2003.

The club plays the majority of its games at the County Cricket Ground, Northampton, but has used outlier grounds at Kettering, Wellingborough and Peterborough (formerly part of Northamptonshire, but now in Cambridgeshire) in the past. It has also used grounds outside the county for one-day games: for example, at Luton, Tring and Milton Keynes.

Northamptonshire

Coordinates: 52°17′N 0°50′W / 52.283°N 0.833°W / 52.283; -0.833

Northamptonshire (/nɔːrˈθæmptənʃər/ or /nɔːrθˈhæmptənʃɪər/; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2011, it had a population of 629,000. The county is administered by Northamptonshire County Council and seven non-metropolitan district councils.

Covering an area of 2,364 square kilometres (913 sq mi), Northamptonshire is landlocked between eight other counties: Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east, Buckinghamshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the south-west and Lincolnshire to the north-east – England's shortest county boundary at 19 metres (62 ft). Northamptonshire is the southernmost county in the East Midlands region.

Apart from the county town of Northampton, other large population centres include Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Rushden and Daventry. Northamptonshire's county flower is the cowslip.

Northamptonshire (UK Parliament constituency)

The county constituency of Northamptonshire, in the East Midlands of England was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832 and was represented in Parliament by two MPs, traditionally known as Knights of the Shire.

After 1832 the county was split into two new constituencies, North Northamptonshire and South Northamptonshire.

Boundaries

The constituency consisted of the historic county of Northamptonshire. Although the county contained a number of parliamentary boroughs, each of which elected one or two MPs in its own right for parts of the period when Northamptonshire was a constituency, these areas were not excluded from the county constituency. Owning freehold property of the required value, within such boroughs, could confer a vote at the county election. (After 1832, only non-resident owners of forty shilling freeholds situated in borough seats could qualify for a county vote on the basis of that property.)

Northamptonshire (European Parliament constituency)

Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each.

The constituency of Northamptonshire was one of them.

When it was created in England in 1979, it consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Aylesbury, Buckingham, Daventry, Harborough, Kettering, Northampton North, Northampton South, although this may not have been true for the whole of its existence.

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