The Beginning of the Confusion

1889

1889

County Councils were created - the areas that they controlled more or less coincided with the ancient geographical county and so county identity was very little affected.

   
1974

1974

New administrative counties were created, but these did not affect the boundaries of the ancient and geographical counties and the boundaries of Lancashire remained unaltered. However, because the media began to refer to these new administrative counties instead of continuing to use the names and identities of the geographical counties, some people were misled into thinking that they had been moved over night into a new county.

   
1986

1986

The councils of the Metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside were abolished and replaced with a number of unitary authorities. Greater Manchester and Merseyside thereby ceased to be administrative areas.

 

1996

Other administrative counties were abolished, e.g. Avon, Cleveland and Humberside. To take account of this the Royal Mail eliminated administrative counties from postal addresses, but stated that the inclusion of a geographical county name would not affect the way that they handled the mail providing the Post Code is included. This means that if you live in the real county you can include Lancashire in your address no matter which administrative area or 'county' you live in. 

 

1997

New Ordnance Survey maps and road atlases no longer depict the defunct administrative counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside, but show instead the unitary authorities of southern Lancashire and north Cheshire.

   
1998

1998

New Unitary Authority areas of 'Blackburn with Darwen', 'Blackpool', 'Halton' and 'Warrington'. These new administrative areas will now be shown on Ordnance Survey maps which means that the towns of Blackburn, Darwen and Blackpool will no longer be shown on maps as part of Lancashire.

The future

The counties of this country are an integral part of our history and culture and it is essential that their true identity is preserved. Until 1974 the identities of most of the ancient and geographical counties of the United Kingdom had remained essentially unaltered for over a thousand years. Very little needs to be done to undo the damage to this county identity that has occurred since 1974, but unless steps are taken now, we run the risk of losing this very important part of our heritage.

You can help by always referring to the geographical county in which you live, not the administrative county.