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Humberside () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber, created from portions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding of Yorkshire, and the northern part of Lindsey, Lincolnshire. The county council's headquarters was County Hall at Beverley, inherited from East Riding County Council. Its largest settlement and only city was Kingston upon Hull. Other notable towns included Goole, Beverley, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Bridlington. The county stretched from Wold Newton at its northern tip to a different Wold Newton at its southernmost point.
Humberside bordered North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire to the south-west, and Lincolnshire to the south. It faced east towards the North Sea.
On 1 April 1996, Humberside was abolished, and replaced with four unitary authority areas: North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, Kingston upon Hull, and East Riding of Yorkshire. The name has continued in use as a geographical term, mainly in the media, and in the names of institutions such as Humberside Police and Humberside Fire and Rescue Service. These institutions did not change their names mainly due to costs. There were proposals to merge the police force with other Yorkshire forces and then change all the forces' names accordingly. However, these proposals were later ruled out.
Humber Enterprise Zone was launched in 2012 to encourage industrial development at 16 sites around the estuary.
Unlike "Merseyside", which was used colloquially, "Humberside" was adopted as an official term in 1964, when the planning region of Yorkshire and The Humber was created. It consisted of the majority of the former East Riding of Yorkshire and some eastern parts of the former West Riding of Yorkshire and Parts of Lindsey from Lincolnshire. From that time onwards "Humberside" was actively used to market the area. In 1971 the newly launched local BBC radio station was named Radio Humberside, but since the abolition of the county the broadcasters have referred to people of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.
The Redcliffe-Maud Report that preceded the Local Government Act 1972 had not proposed any directly analogous area. Instead it proposed making the part north of the Humber one unitary authority, and the part south of it another. The White Paper that followed the Report did not include a cross-Humber authority either, having named the northern part "East Yorkshire" and kept the southern area in Lincolnshire. Humberside had emerged in the Local Government Bill as introduced to Parliament, which also gave it its name for the first time."Humberside Joins New County Ranks." The Times. 5 November 1971.
Paul Bryan, the MP for Howden, moved an amendment to the Bill that would have created a county of East Yorkshire, covering the rural area of northern Humberside along with Selby and York (and also Flaxton Rural District), leaving a Humberside including Haltemprice, Hull, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Goole, while Cleethorpes and Grimsby Rural District would have been kept in Lincolnshire. The amendment was rejected by the House.
At this time there was very little connecting its two parts, aside from ferries and a circuitous journey via Goole (a road journey from Grimsby to Beverley, the headquarters, being something just under 100 miles). It was promised by the government that the Humber Bridge would make it a more viable unit. However, after Humberside came into existence, the bridge wasn't even built yet. By 1975 the bridge was planned to open in 1977."Humberside: Bridge Seen as Symbol of Unity." The Times. 7 April 1975. The bridge was finally opened on 24 June 1981, providing a permanent link between North and South, and cutting the journey from Grimsby to Beverley to a mere 30 or so miles, but, it did not secure Humberside's future.
The shield formed an heraldic map of the county. At the top was a gold ducal coronet from the arms of the city of Hull between two white Yorkshire roses, while at the bottom of the shield were two gold fleur-de-lis representing Lincolnshire. Across the centre of the shield was a blue and silver wave for the River Humber.
The crest was a blue eagle, taken from the arms of the former East Riding County Council, rising phoenix-like from flames, suggesting a new authority emerging from the ashes of the old. The eagle's wings bore gold droplets standing for North Sea Oil and held in its beak a sword representing the Scunthorpe steel industry.
The supporters on either side were a silver dolphin bearing a terrestrial globe and supporting an anchor, representing worldwide trade; and Ceres, goddess of harvests, for the county's agriculture. They stood upon a compartment depicting the countryside and coastline of Humberside.
The blazon (technical description) of the arms is:
Per fess Sable and Gules on a Fess wavy Argent between in chief a Coronet Or between two Roses Argent barbed and seeded proper and in base two Fleurs de Lis Or a Bar wavy Azure and for a Crest on a Wreath Or and Gules rising from Flames proper a demi-Eagle Azure Goutté d'Or armed also Gold holding in the beak a Sword point downwards proper hilt and pommel Or.
And for Supporters on the dexter a Dolphin Argent finned Or charged on the shoulder with a Terrestrial Globe Azure the land masses Or supporting an Anchor proper and on the sinister a Female Figure habited representing Ceres with Cornucopia all proper upon a Compartment per pale Water barry wavy Azure and Argent and a Grassy Field proper.
The motto was United We Flourish.
On the abolition of the county council in 1996 the arms became obsolete. However, the Humberside Fire and Rescue Service continues to use a version of the shield as its badge.
This attitude was reported as less common in the port towns of the county. For example, The Times noted in 1974 that Hull and Grimsby "regard the advantages of unification as an exciting prospect".
In 1982 the Local Government Boundary Commission for England advised the Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, that "a review of the Humberside county boundary was warranted". The Local Government Boundary Commission reviewed the existence of Humberside from 1985 to 1988, but found that "Humberside County Council could not be shown to have failed". In 1989 the Secretary of State for the Environment called for a further review, which resulted in a proposal made in November 1990 to transfer the four districts south of the Humber to the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire, which would have left the remaining part north of the Humber free to change its name to include "Yorkshire". A report prepared for the Commission in 1990 indicated that 63 per cent of respondents thought that the creation of Humberside was "bad" and only 14 per cent thought that it was "good".
However, before the proposal could be implemented, a general local government review for England was announced. This was conducted with an eye to creating unitary authorities, and Humberside was one of the areas that the commission was expecting "early wins" in, and was in the first tranche of reviews. The Commission recommended that the county and its districts be abolished and replaced with four unitary authorities, a proposal that the government accepted. The Order for abolition and replacement was debated in the House of Commons on 28 February 1995 and in the House of Lords on 6 March 1995, and it came into effect on 1 April 1996.
There were questions raised as to whether the boundaries of Hull should be expanded, given that they had been set many decades before and never altered despite continuous urbanisation in the neighbouring area, the former urban district of Haltemprice.
Michael Brown, the Conservative MP for Brigg and Cleethorpes, was particularly vociferous in support of the Order, saying in the debate regarding abolition: "I want to see the word 'Humberside' expunged from the English language".
Few voices were heard in defence of Humberside. Elliot Morley, Labour MP for Glanford and Scunthorpe, claimed that "young people who were born in Humberside and have an affinity with Humberside identify with it," but he agreed that the council was a "flawed idea".
The abolition of the county thus resulted in four successor unitary authorities:
There was some debate as to the fate of Goole and the surrounding area, historically part of the West Riding. The Secretary of State, John Gummer, initially proposed that Goole should be "incorporated in Selby of North Yorkshire", but it was decided to associate it with the rest of North Humberside.
The offices of Lord Lieutenant of Humberside and High Sheriff of Humberside were also abolished. The Yorkshire part became the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, which includes Hull, while the Lincolnshire part reverted to Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes. The whole of the area once covered by the former non-metropolitan county of Humberside, including the Lincolnshire parts, is part of the government office region of Yorkshire and the Humber (originally Yorkshire and Humberside).
The campaign was stepped up on 22 November 2013 after MP Graham Stuart stated that the head of the newly privatised Royal Mail had refused to meet him to discuss the matter. A new sticker campaign was launched which encouraged people to return any mail which was incorrectly addressed.
On 2 October 2014 the Royal Mail agreed to remove Humberside from its databases following residents continued protests taken up by Graham Stuart. Royal Mail's CEO Moya Greene stated "Royal Mail can confirm the technical change required to suppress the automatic reference to North and South Humberside as a Former Postal County on postcode address file products supplied to customers was implemented from July as part of a pilot scheme. "This now means no former postal county details will be shown for all postcodes previously tagged with a Humberside reference.
Finally more than 18 years after the county was abolished 'Humberside' as a postal destination ceased to exist.
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