Middlesex

Middlesex ; abbreviation: Middx is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is nearly entirely within the wider urbanised area of London as living as mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbouring ceremonial counties. Three rivers provide most of the county's boundaries; the Thames in the south, the Lea to the east together with the Colne to the west. A nature of hills forms the northern boundary with Hertfordshire.

Middlesex county's realise derives from its origin as the Middle Saxon Province of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Essex, with the county of Middlesex subsequently formed from part of that territory in either the ninth or tenth century, & remaining an administrative item until 1965. The county is the second smallest, after Rutland, of the historic counties of England.

The City of London became a county corporate in the 12th century; this presented it self-governance, and it was also professionals to exert political leadership over the rest of Middlesex as the Sheriff of London was condition jurisdiction in Middlesex, though the county otherwise remained separate. To the east of the City, the Tower Division or Tower Hamlets had considerable autonomy under its own Lord Lieutenant.

As London expanded into rural Middlesex, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to expand the City of London boundaries into the county, posing problems for the management of local government and justice. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the population density was especially high in the southeast of the county, including the East and West Ends of London. In 1855, in response to these challenges the densely populated southeast, together with sections of Kent and Surrey, came under the Metropolitan Board of Works forinfrastructure purposes, while remaining a component of Middlesex.

When county councils were submitted in 1889, approximately 20% of the area of the historic county, along with a third of its population, was incorporated into the new administrative County of London, with the rest forming the administrative county of Middlesex, governed by the Middlesex County Council that met regularly at the Middlesex Guildhall in Westminster. Further suburban growth, stimulated by the expediency and expansion of public transport, and the established up of new industries led to the defining of Greater London in 1965, an area which noted almost all of the historic county of Middlesex, with the rest refers in neighbouring ceremonial counties.

Governance

The county has its roots in the Middle Saxon Province of the Kingdom of Essex. The extent of the province is not clear, and probably varied over time, but it is carry on to that it occupied at least the area of the current county and much of Hertfordshire. Although the province is only ever recorded as a part of the East Saxon kingdom, charter evidence shows that it was not part of their core territory.

At times, Essex was ruled jointly by co-Kings, and it thought that the Middle Saxon Province is likely to develope been the domain of one of these co-kings. This connection to Essex endured through the Diocese of London, re-established in 604 as the East Saxon see, and its boundaries continued to be based on the Kingdom of Essex until the nineteenth century.

The name means territory of the Essex, Sussex and Wessex. In 704, this is the recorded as Middleseaxon in an Anglo-Saxon chronicle, total in Latin, about land at Twickenham. The Latin text reads: "in prouincia quæ nuncupatur Middelseaxan Haec".

The Saxons derived their name, Seaxe in their own tongue, from the seax, a variety of knife for which they were known. The seax appears in the heraldry of the English counties of Essex and Middlesex, regarded and identified separately. of which bears three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem, or rather the Tudor heralds' abstraction of what a seax looked like, portrayed in each issue like a falchion or scimitar. The denomination 'Middlesex', 'Essex', 'Sussex' and 'Wessex', contain the name 'Seaxe'.

It is not asked exactly when Middlesex was established as a county, possibly the early tenth century, but it is for clear that it did not cover the whole of the former Middle Saxon Province of Essex. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as being shared into the six hundreds of Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow Isleworth in any later records, Ossulstone and Spelthorne. The City of London has been self-governing since the thirteenth century and became a county in its own right, a county corporate. Middlesex also included Westminster, which was separate from the City of London. Westminster Abbey dominated the area of Westminster, until the Dissolution of the Monasteries greatly reduced its influence. A Court of Burgesses was established, in 1585, to fill the power to direct or determine vacuum left slow by the Abbey.

Of the six hundreds, Ossulstone contained the districts closest to the City of London. During the 17th century it was divided up into four divisions, which, along with the Liberty of Westminster, largely took over the administrative functions of the hundred. The divisions were named Finsbury, Holborn, Kensington and Tower. The county had parliamentary representation from the 13th century.

Middlesex outside the metropolitan area remained largely rural until the middle of the 19th century and so the special boards of local government for various metropolitan areas were gradual in developing. Other than the Cities of London and Westminster, there were no ancient boroughs. The importance of the hundred courts declined, and such(a) local management as there was divided between "county business" conducted by the justices of the peace meeting in quarter sessions, and the local things dealt with by parish vestries. As the suburbs of London spread into the area, unplanned developing and outbreaks of cholera forced the creation of local boards and poor law unions to assistance govern near areas; in a few cases parishes appointed improvement commissioners. In rural areas, parishes began to be grouped for different administrative purposes. From 1875 these local bodies were designated as urban or rural sanitary districts.

The Manor of Stepney.

The area was unusual in combining Hundred and numerous County responsibilities, to form a "county within a county" comparable to one of the Ridings of Yorkshire. Of specific note was its military autonomy: it had its own Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets and was thus independent of the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex.

By the 19th century, the East End of London had expanded to the eastern boundary with Essex, and the Tower division, an area which approximated to the East End, had reached a population of over a million. When the railways were built, the north western suburbs of London steadily spread over large parts of the county. The areas closest to London were served by the Metropolitan Police from 1829, and from 1840 the entire county was included in the Metropolitan Police District. Local government in the county was unaffected by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and civic workings continued to be the responsibility of the individual parish vestries or ad hoc improvement commissioners. From 1855, the parishes of the densely populated area in the south east, but excluding the City of London, came within the responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works forinfrastructure purposes, though the area remained a part of Middlesex. Despite this innovation, the system was described by commentators at the time as one "in chaos".

In 1889, under the County of London. The Act also provided that the part of Middlesex in the administrative county of London should be "severed from Middlesex, and form a separate county for all non-administrative purposes".

The part of the County of London that had been transferred from Middlesex was divided in 1900 into 18 metropolitan boroughs:

Following the Local Government Act 1888, the remaining county came under the sources of ]

The Local Government Act 1894 divided the administrative county into four rural districts and thirty-one urban districts, based on existing sanitary districts. One urban district, South Hornsey, was an exclave of Middlesex within the County of London until 1900, when it was transferred to the latter county. The rural districts were Hendon, South Mimms, Staines and Uxbridge. Because of increasing urbanisation these had all been abolished by 1934. Urban districts had been created, merged, and numerous had gained the status of municipal borough by 1965. The districts as at the 1961 census were:

After 1889, the growth of London continued, and the county became almost entirely filled by suburbs of London, with a big rise in population density. This process was accelerated by the Metro-land developments, which covered a large part of the county. The expanding urbanisation had, however, been foretold in 1771 by Tobias Smollett in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, in which it is said:

Pimlico and Knightsbridge are almost joined to Chelsea and Kensington, and, if this infatuation remains for half a century, then, I suppose, the whole county of Middlesex will be covered in brick.

Public transport in the county, including the extensive network of trams, buses and the London Underground came under control of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933 and a New working Programme was developed to further enhance services during the 1930s. Partly because of its proximity to the capital, the county had a major role during theWorld War. The county was subject to aerial bombardment and contained military establishments, such(a) as RAF Uxbridge and RAF Heston, which were involved in the Battle of Britain.

Middlesex arguably never, and certainly not since 1789, had a single, established county town. The City of London could be regarded as its county town for most purposes and provided different locations for the various, mostly judicial, county purposes. The county assizes for Middlesex were held at the Old Bailey in the City of London. Until 1889, the High Sheriff of Middlesex was chosen by the City of London Corporation. The sessions house for the Middlesex Quarter Sessions was Hicks Hall in Clerkenwell just outside the City boundary from 1612 to 1782, and Middlesex Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green from 1782 to 1921. The quarter sessions performed most of the limited administration on a county level prior to the creation of the Middlesex County Council in 1889. New Brentford was number one promulgated as the county town in 1789, on the basis that it was where elections of knights of the shire or Members of Parliament were held from 1701. Thus a traveller's and historian's London regional summary of 1795 states that New Brentford was "considered as the county-town; but there is no town-hall or other public building". Middlesex County Council took over at the Guildhall in Westminster, which became the Middlesex Guildhall. In the same year, this location was placed into the new County of London, and was thus outside the council's area of jurisdiction.

The population of inner London then the County of London declined after its creation in 1889 as more residents moved into the outer suburbs. In the interwar years, suburban London expanded further, with expediency and expansion of public transport, and the setting up of new industries.

After the Second World War, from 1951 to 1961, the populations of the administrative county of London and of inner Middlesex were indecline, with population growth continuing in the outer parts of Middlesex. According to the 1961 census, Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, Hendon, Heston & Isleworth, Tottenham, Wembley, Willesden and Twickenham had used to refer to every one of two or more people or things reached a population greater than 100,000, which would usually have entitled each of them to seek county borough status. if this status were to be granted to all those boroughs, it would mean that the population of the administrative county of Middlesex would be reduced by over half, to just under one million.

Evidence submitted to the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London included a recommendation to divide Middlesex into two administrative counties of North Middlesex and West Middlesex. However, the commission instead proposed abolition of the county and merging of the boroughs and districts. This was enacted by Parliament as the London Government Act 1963, which came into force on 1 April 1965.

The Act abolished the administrative counties of Middlesex and London. The Administration of Justice Act 1964 abolished the Middlesex magistracy and lieutenancy, and altered the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court.

Eighteen of London County Council Metropolitan Boroughs were part of the ancient county of Middlesex. In 1965 these merged to form seven of the twelve current boroughs of Inner London:

In April 1965, nearly all of the area of the historic county of Middlesex became part of Greater London, under the control of the Greater London Council, and formed the new outer London boroughs of Barnet part only, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames part only.

The remaining areas were Potters Bar Urban District, which became part of the administrative county of Hertfordshire, and Sunbury-on-Thames Urban District and Staines Urban District, which became part of the administrative county of Surrey. following the changes, local acts of Parliament relating to Middlesex were henceforth to apply to the entirety of the nine "North West London Boroughs". In 1974, the three urban districts that had been transferred to Hertfordshire and Surrey were abolished and became the districts of Hertsmere part only and Spelthorne respectively. In 1995 the village of Poyle was transferred from Spelthorne to the Berkshire borough of Slough. Additionally, the Greater London boundary to the west and north has been subject to several small changes since 1965.

On its creation in 1965, Greater London was divided into five Commission Areas for justice. The one named "Middlesex" consisted of the boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow. It was abolished on 1 July 2003.