Ancient Parishes of England and Wales, 1831

Abstract/Contents

Abstract

The system of Ancient Parishes was not defined by central government, but grew up over the centuries starting in Saxon times. By origin it was an entirely ecclesiastical system, but it became the main geography for a variety of statistical reporting, partly because the main local sources for many government inquiries were the parish priests of the Church of England. Its origins mean there was no central record of the system, and boundary mapping of the whole country by the Ordnance Survey was not completed until the late 19th century, so there is room for substantial debate about what parishes actually existed at a given date. This file was constructed around the county-by-county parish listings of the 1831 Census of Population. Under the Ancient Parish system, many parishes especially in the north of England consisted of a mother parish based on the main settlement, plus surrounding Townships, Chapelries and hamlets (many of which later became separate Civil Parishes): the file makes no attempt to represent those subdivisions, only the overall parishes. Statistical data and other information used in “A Vision of Britain through Time” can be accessed and downloaded here: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data.

Purpose

This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data.

Description

Type of resource	cartographic, software, multimedia
Form	Shapefile
Extent	18.22
Place	Portsmouth, GB
Publisher	University of Portsmouth
Publication date	2009
Language	English
Digital origin	born digital
Map data	1:126720 ; Custom projection W 6°59ʹ2ʺ--E 2°4ʹ36ʺ/N 55°48ʹ40ʺ--N 49°52ʹ52ʺW 6°21ʹ53ʺ--E 1°45ʹ58ʺ/N 55°48ʹ40ʺ--N 49°52ʹ57ʺ, Scale not given ; EPSG::4326

Creators/Contributors

Creator	Southall, Humphrey
Creator	Aucott, Paula
Creator	Bennett, Chris
Creator	University of Portsmouth

Subjects

Subject	Parishes
Subject	Administrative and political divisions
Subject	England
Subject	Wales
Subject	1831
Subject	Boundaries
Genre	Geospatial data
Genre	Cartographic dataset

Bibliographic information

Supplemental information	Gregory, I, Bennett, C, Gilham, V., and Southall, H. 2002. The Great Britain Historical GIS Project: from maps to changing human geography.' The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, p. 37-49. Southall, H 2012, 'Rebuilding the Great Britain Historical GIS, part 2: a geo-spatial ontology of administrative units' Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, vol 45, no. 3, pp. 119-134. DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2012.664101
Use limitation	For full details see License document included with this layer
WGS84 Cartographics	This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/th733xx7493

Access conditions

Use and reproduction

These data are licensed by Stanford Libraries and are available to Stanford University affiliates for non-commercial activities of research, teaching, educational or scholarly work purposes only. Affiliates are limited to current faculty, staff and students. An End User License outlining the full terms of use is included with this download.

Copyright

Copyright © Great Britain Historical GIS Project and the University of Portsmouth. By downloading any data from this site, you agree to the terms contained in the End User License.

Preferred citation

Preferred citation

Great Britain Historical GIS Project. (2009). Ancient Parishes of England and Wales, 1831. University of Portsmouth. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/th733xx7493

Collection

A vision of Britain through time

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