Local Government Act 1888 - Counties For Other Purposes

Counties For Other Purposes

The Act also ensured that the boundaries used for what it terms "non-administrative purposes" would be synchronised with the borders between the administrative counties. The non-administrative purposes were stated to be "sheriff, lieutenant, custos rotulorum, justices, militia, coroner, or other", thus approximating to the functions of modern ceremonial counties.

The counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Suffolk, Sussex and Yorkshire were undivided so far as they were one county at the passing of the Act. The three ridings of Yorkshire and the three parts of Lincolnshire therefore retained their status.

County boroughs were to be administrative counties of themselves. The Act provided that each county borough that had previously been part of a county (i.e., was not a county corporate) should continue to be part of that county for non-administrative purposes. If a county borough did not have a separate commission of assize, oyer and terminer and jury service, or gaol delivery, it was deemed to be part of one or more adjoining counties for those purposes. The Act also provided for certain financial adjustments between county boroughs and adjoining counties.

The Act did not in terms affect the status of cities and towns which were counties corporate. Most of the counties corporate became county boroughs and therefore administrative counties of themselves, but while other county boroughs continued to be part of their existing counties for all other purposes, that did not apply to existing counties corporate. Those that did not become county boroughs became part of adjacent administrative counties but retained their existing lieutenancies and shrievalties.