Civil parishes are small divisions used for statistical purposes and formerly for local government in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Civil

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

es gained legal functions in 1845 which parochial boards were established to administer the poor law. Their local government functions were abolished in 1930 with their powers transferred to county or burgh councils. Since 1975, they have been superseded as the smallest unit of local administration in Scotland by

community council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. In ...

History

Civil parishes in Scotland can be dated from 1845, when parochial boards were established to administer the poor law. While they originally corresponded to the parishes of the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...

, the number and boundaries of parishes soon diverged. Where a parish contained a

burgh A burgh is an autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland and Northern England, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burg ...

, a separate ''landward'' parish was formed for the portion outside the town. Until 1891 many parishes lay in more than one

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

. In that year, under the terms of the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 50) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which was passed on 26 August 1889. The main effect of the act was to establish elected county councils in Scotland. In this it foll ...

, the boundaries of most of the civil parishes and counties were realigned so that each parish was wholly within a single county. In 1894 the parochial boards were replaced by more democratically elected parish councils. Parish councils were in turn abolished in 1930, under the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo 5 c. 25) reorganised local government in Scotland from 1930, introducing joint county councils, large and small burghs and district councils. The Act also abolished the Scottish poor law syst ...

, with powers being transferred to county councils in landward areas of counties and burgh councils where they were within a burgh. Their boundaries continued to be used to define some of the local authorities created by the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c. 65) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered local government in Scotland on 16 May 1975. The Act followed and largely implemented the report of the Royal Commission on Local Gove ...

and they continue to be used for census purposes and they are used as part of the coding system for agricultural holdings under the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) used to administer schemes within the

Common Agricultural Policy The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Union. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce the ...

. According to the website of the

General Register Office for Scotland The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adopti ...

, there are now 871 civil parishes.

Relationship with ecclesiastical parishes

Civil parish boundaries originally corresponded with the ecclesiastical parishes of the

. As parishes used for religious functions diverged from civil parishes, the former became known as

quoad sacra parish A ''quoad sacra'' parish is a parish of the Church of Scotland which does not represent a civil parish. That is, it had ecclesiastical functions but no local government functions. Since the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929, civil parishes have ...

es.

Community councils

Since 1975, Scotland has been divided into

areas which are often similar to civil parishes in their boundaries. These community council are not equivalent to English parish councils and Welsh community councils and do not have legal powers of their own but in some cases

local authorities Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

have a legal obligation to consult them.

References

External links

Scottish Civil Parish Maps at ArcGIS
*scotlandsplaces.gov.uk displays parish maps for individual counties, as i
this example of Dumfriesshire parishes.
*A list of the 871 parishes may be downloade
here
{{Civil parish History of local government in Scotland Former subdivisions of Scotland Defunct organisations based in Scotland

History

Relationship with ecclesiastical parishes

Community councils

See also

References

External links