Parish (Scotland)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Parishes were in Scotland the level of municipalities . Historically, they developed from the ecclesiastical administrative units of the same name, the parishes . After their separation , the term Civil Parish , abbreviated to CP, was used to differentiate . In the course of an administrative reform decided in 1929, the tasks assigned to them were shifted to a higher level, and the elected management bodies were dissolved. From then on they only served internal administrative and statistical purposes, in 1975 the parishes were finally abolished. The Community Council Areas introduced at the same time are their successors, but have a significantly weaker position.

history

As in other parts of the United Kingdom have already been in the Middle Ages in the then independent Scotland the parishes ( english Parishes also entrusted) as an ecclesiastical units with the acquisition of mundane tasks. First they were those of the Roman Catholic Church , then in the course of the Reformation at the end of the 17th century they became those of the Church of Scotland . At that time there were around 900 parishes.

The separation between church and state took place in two essential steps. In the course of the beginning of industrialization, there were population shifts, due to which the delimitation of the parishes no longer corresponded to the needs of the church administration. Since the parishes had a dual function, the Church of Scotland had to obtain government approval for any intended change. With the New Parishes (Scotland) Act of 1844, the church was now given the opportunity to independently carry out reclassifications, the year 1845 is therefore regarded as the year of origin of the parishes as a state administrative unit. Subsequently, the additions quoad sacra (only church), quoad civilia (only state) and quaod omnia (both as well as) developed for the parishes .

With the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1894, the Parishes' governing body, the Parish Board, which had previously been made up of a combination of landowners, representatives of the parish and members elected from among the taxpayer population, was replaced by one of the population in The Parish Council is elected every three years. There was no mayor, instead the body was headed by a chairman elected from within the group for a year. A Local Government Board was also installed as a higher-level supervisory authority.

The boundaries of the parishes were not congruent with those of the Burghs , i.e. the communities provided with town and market rights that had their own magistrate and extended rights. The situation became even more complicated with the development of the Burghs Police from 1833. They not only emerged in previously non-urban areas, but could also be adopted by existing Burghs as an additional status with a different spatial scope.

Since the system of parishes was developed independently of the counties , there was also territorial overlap here. After the Local Government (Scotland) Act was established in 1889 that border commissions ( English Boundary Commissions ) were set up, which would have to review the boundaries of their meaning and make corrections, it was especially in the 1890s to extensive cleanup mergers and Divisions. At this point in time 64 parishes were divided between two of these counties, with Logie and Arngask there were three. On this occasion, widespread enclaves and exclaves were also eliminated.

As an example, the situation of the aforementioned Logie can be cited, which was divided into the counties of Clackmannan , Perth and Stirling in 1888 and at the same time included parts of the Burghs Bridge of Allan and Stirling .

tasks

One of the early tasks of the parishes was, in addition to maintaining the local road network, in particular caring for the poor . In 1579 they first had to draw up lists of those in need living in their area, and in 1597 they were given their support. This system reached its limits from the 1840s, due to a strong increase in the needy, but also to the so-called "disruption" , the separation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, and the associated loss of pastors who could have organized it . The Scottish Poor Law Act of 1845 first introduced governing bodies, the Parochial Boards . Unlike in England and Wales , the construction of workhouses was not compulsory and was also limited to parishes or associations thereof with at least 5,000 inhabitants. In addition, the boards were able to decide to introduce a local tax to finance the needy. If this was implemented, however, the taxed part of the population received the right to elect members to the Parochial Board. Of the 880 parishes at that time, 680 made use of this option by 1853. The parishes were relieved from 1872, because the schools they ran were taken over by the state.

Over the years, other areas of responsibility were gradually added or relocated to other levels. Some were voluntary, such as the establishment and operation of libraries, leisure facilities, public swimming pools or allotment gardens, while others were mandatory, for example in the area of ​​general health care. The Public Health (Scotland) Act of 1867 and its subsequent amendments should be mentioned in particular. If part of the Parish belonged to a Police Burgh, this only applied to the area outside of it. For this was Committees ( English Committee ) worked, composed of the representatives elected in this field in the Parish Council representatives who had to decide on the relevant issues.

Dissolution and further development

In the course of the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1929, which came into force in the following year, the Parish Councils were dissolved. The cities were divided into small burghs and large burghs, depending on their size, and were given part of the parish's responsibilities for the area of ​​the parish located within the urban area. In the other areas, referred to in the law as landward , these were transferred to higher-level units, the administrative counties and districts .

The parishes themselves were retained, but only as internal administrative units. For example, the Valution Rolls , a kind of expanded, annually updated land register, continued to be kept on the basis of parishes, as were entries in monument protection registers such as the lists of Listed Buildings or Scheduled Monuments . Parishes also served as the basis for dividing constituencies.

In 1975 the Parishs were finally dissolved. With the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1973, the higher-level administrative units - at that time the Districts, after an administrative reform since 1996 the Council Areas - were obliged to set up regulations for the installation of community councils in their areas and corresponding areas, the community Council areas to be delimited. They are to be regarded as successors to the parishes, but have a significantly weaker position.

The parishes continue to exist as statistical units. For example, the National Records of Scotland , which is responsible for carrying out the census that takes place every ten years, also offers parishes for 2011. Here there are 871 of them, but some of them, with a small population, are included in a neighboring one. There are also other numbers, for example for genealogy . The Scottish government keeps a coding list of 891  Acricultural Parishes , including for European Union funding.

In 1973 the British government was still based on the existing structures and regrouped parishes individually or as part of larger units, in 1996 it deviated from this in part. Since then, the current administrative boundaries in some of the Council Areas are no longer congruent with those of the Parishes.

Parishes as the basis of the statistical accounts

The "Statistical Accounts of Scotland", three geographical-historical-statistical series from the 1790s, the middle of the 18th and the first half of the 20th century, are subdivided according to parishes. They each comprise several volumes and, due to their formalized, detailed descriptions of the individual communities, are considered to be groundbreaking works on regional studies .

literature

Legal texts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Burgh Records on the National Records of Scotland website, accessed August 23, 2018
  2. ↑ Logie, Stirlingshire at Vision of Britain, accessed on 23 August 2018 (English)
  3. ↑ The Workhouse in Scotland on a UK workhouse website, accessed 23 August 2018.
  4. ↑ Part 4: The 1872 Education (Scotland) Act . University of Edinburgh's Moray House School of Education website , accessed 23 August 2018
  5. ↑ Part IV: General of the Law of 1929, accessed on August 23, 2018 (English)
  6. ↑ Part I, Sentence 1: Transfer of Functions of the 1929 Law, accessed on August 23, 2018 (English)
  7. ↑ Valuation Rolls ScotlandsPeople, accessed August 13, 2018
  8. ↑ Part IV: Community Councils . Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 on UK Government Legislative Server, accessed 23 August 2018.
  9. ↑ Standard outputs on the official website for the census. To be found under 1. Select year: 2011 -> 2. Select table: KS101SC -> 3. 3. Select area type: CP. Other tables of the groups beginning with the letters K, L and Q under point 2 can also be broken down according to Parish. Overall tables for 2001 and 2011 can be found here (English)
  10. ↑ Geography: Census areas on the official website for the census, accessed on August 23, 2018 (English)
  11. ↑ Scottish Counties + Parishes 1855–1971 on a genealogy website, accessed August 23, 2018 (English)
  12. ↑ Agricultural Parishes on the UK Government's data server, accessed August 23, 2018
  13. ↑ Agricultural Parish Map of Scotland on the Scottish Government website, accessed 23 August 2018.
  14. ↑ Council Directive of February 28, 1984 on the Community List of Less Favored Agricultural Areas within the meaning of Directive 75/268 / EEC (United Kingdom) (84/169 / EEC) on the website of the European Union, accessed on August 23, 2018
  15. ↑ Geography - Background Information - Civil Parishes and Islands on the National Records of Scotland website. Available online , PDF file, 1.2 MB, accessed on August 23, 2018
  16. ↑ Schedule 1: New Local Government Areas des Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 on the UK Government's law eater, accessed on 23 August 2018 (English)