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A county corporate or corporate county was a type of subnational division used for the administration of justice in certain towns and cities in England, Wales, and Ireland. They arose when the monarch gave a borough corporation the right to appoint its own , separating that borough from the jurisdiction of the sheriff of the county in which it lay.
They were legally described as forming separate counties, but in both contemporary usage whilst they existed and in discussion by modern historians the counties corporate are generally distinguished from the wider counties. From Tudor times onwards were appointed to oversee the militia for each county; with the exceptions of London and Haverfordwest, each county corporate was covered by the lieutenant of an adjoining county. Provisions were also made allowing court cases arising from counties corporate to be heard at the assizes for the adjoining county.
"County corporate" was not a statutory name, but was a commonly used description for such towns and cities. Other terms used included county of itself or city and county. They were similar to an independent city or consolidated city-county in other countries. The equivalent term in Scotland was a county of a city.
In England and Wales, were created from 1889 onwards, which were similar in that they were places that were independent from their surrounding counties for local government functions. There was some overlap between the places that were counties corporate for judicial purposes and the places that were county boroughs for local government purposes. Sheriffs retained some judicial functions until 1972 when the courts system was reformed. The counties corporate were abolished in England and Wales in 1974, although some of the former counties corporate still retain the right to appoint a ceremonial sheriff.
Around 1132, the Corporation of London was given the right to appoint two sheriffs to jointly serve the city and the county of Middlesex in which it was located, instead of the monarch appointing a Sheriff of Middlesex with jurisdiction over London as had previously been the case. Other boroughs later campaigned for the right to appoint their own sheriffs too, which would allow them to hold all types of court case. In 1373, Bristol was the next borough to be given the right to appoint its own sheriff. Bristol's elevation to being its own county was partly on the basis of its growing size and importance, and partly because the borough straddled the counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset (both of which held their courts some distance from Bristol) which had caused problems with the administration of the borough.
Other large boroughs later followed suit. The charters giving boroughs the rights to appoint their own sheriff generally did not use the term 'county corporate', instead using wording which made the borough into a new county and directed that the sheriff for that new county should be chosen by the borough corporation, rather than the monarch as was the case for other counties. One exception was the charter awarded to Coventry in 1451, which did explicitly use the term 'county corporate'. Although not a statutory term, 'county corporate' came to be used to describe these places which were legally counties, but where the right to appoint a sheriff rested with the borough corporation rather than with the monarch.
Some of the counties corporate were also the county town of the wider county in which they lay. In nine such cases (Carmarthen, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, and York) the area around the courthouse for the wider county was excluded from the county corporate, making such courthouses exclaves of the wider county. As well as larger towns and cities, some counties corporate were created to deal with specific local problems, such as border conflict (in the case of Berwick-upon-Tweed) and piracy (in the cases of Poole and Haverfordwest).
Most of the counties corporate only covered the borough, but in three cases they extended beyond the borough boundaries to include adjoining areas. York was made a county corporate in 1396, and its jurisdiction was extended in 1449 to cover an area to the west of the city known as the Ainsty. Kingston upon Hull was made a county corporate in 1440, and its jurisdiction was extended in 1447 to cover an adjoining area to the west, which became known as Hullshire. When Coventry was made a county corporate in 1451 its jurisdiction covered several surrounding villages known as the County of the City of Coventry. York and Hull lost their jurisdiction over the rural areas when both were reduced to just cover the borough boundaries under the Municipal Corporation (Boundaries) Act 1836. There were disputes about the effect of the 1836 Act on Coventry, which were resolved in 1842 when the county corporate of Coventry was abolished completely and the city and surrounding villages were placed back under the authority of the Sheriff of Warwickshire.
The Sheriff of the City of London also had a jurisdiction that extended beyond the city boundary, covering the whole of the county of Middlesex. In 1889 the sheriff's jurisdiction was reduced to just cover the city itself, on the creation of the separate positions of Sheriff of the County of London, covering the rest of the new County of London as lay outside the city itself, and Sheriff of Middlesex, covering the reduced area of Middlesex that was left outside the County of London.
Lord-lieutenants began to be appointed in each county from Tudor times onwards. Although counties corporate were legally described as counties, they were not given their own lieutenants, with the exceptions of London and Haverfordwest. Instead, lieutenants were appointed to what was termed the 'county at large', including counties corporate with the adjoining county from which they had been separated. The practice of not appointing separate lieutenants for counties corporate was an informal convention at first, but was subsequently made statutory under the Militia Act 1882.
From the 18th century onwards, court cases arising from counties corporate were allowed to be held jointly with the assizes for the neighbouring county.
In 1836 all the counties corporate except London were reformed to become municipal boroughs under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888. Certain boroughs were considered large enough for their existing corporations to provide county-level local government functions, and so they were given a new status of county borough. The new local government arrangements in 1889 did not directly affect the counties corporate, which were judicial in nature rather than providing local government functions. However, most of the counties corporate also qualified to be made county boroughs. There were only five counties corporate which did not become county boroughs, being Berwick upon Tweed, Lichfield, Poole, Carmarthen and Haverfordwest. Those five became part of the administrative county in which they were situated for local government purposes, but retained their separate judicial functions and right to appoint their own sheriffs. The City of London retained (and as of 2024 still retains) its previous status, including most responsibilities associated with a borough and some normally associated with a county, for example having its own police force and its own education authority.
The assizes, quarter sessions and other courts which had been under the responsibility of a sheriff were all abolished in 1972 under the Courts Act 1971, thus ending the judicial powers associated with being a county corporate. The counties corporate were not explicitly abolished by the 1971 Act, and they retained the right to appoint a sheriff, albeit no longer holding any powers. With the exception of the City of London, the other counties corporate, being a type of municipal borough, were abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 which abolished all municipal boroughs. Some of the new bodies created in 1974, including town councils for and non-metropolitan district councils, were given the right to continue to appoint a ceremonial sheriff if that town or city had been a county corporate prior to 1974.
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