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England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, a township (Latin: ''villa'') is a local division or district of a large parish containing a village or small town usually having its own church. A township may or may not be coterminous with a chapelry, manor, or any other minor area of local administration. The township is distinguished from the following: *
Vill Vill is a term used in English history to describe the basic rural land unit, roughly comparable to that of a parish, manor, village or tithing. Medieval developments The vill was the smallest territorial and administrative unit—a geographica ...
: traditionally, among legal historians, a ''vill'' referred to the tract of land of a rural community, whereas ''township'' was used when referring to the tax and legal administration of that community. * Chapelry: the 'parish' of a chapel (a church without full parochial functions). * Tithing: the basic unit of the medieval
Frankpledge Frankpledge was a system of joint suretyship common in England throughout the Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages. The essential characteristic was the compulsory sharing of responsibility among persons connected in tithings. This unit, unde ...
system. 'Township' is, however, sometimes used loosely for any of the above.


History

In many areas of England, the basic unit of civil administration was the parish, generally identical with the ecclesiastical parish. However, in some cases, particularly in Northern England, there was a lesser unit called a township, being a subdivision of a parish. This could happen for several reasons: *In some parts of Northern England, the parishes were too large to be managed conveniently. For example, Sheffield constituted a single parish, which had six townships in it —
Ecclesall Ecclesall Ward—which includes the neighbourhoods of Banner Cross, Bents Green, Carterknowle, Ecclesall, Greystones, Millhouses, and Ringinglow—is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the southweste ...
Bierlow, Brightside Bierlow, Attercliffe cum Darnall, Nether Hallam, Upper Hallam, and Sheffield itself. Whalley parish, in Lancashire, contained 47 townships and extended over 43,000 ha (105,000 ac). *There or elsewhere, occasionally, different parts of a parish were in different hundreds or counties. * Sometimes, one township included parts of several different parishes, as in Heworth near York, which included parts of the parishes of St Saviour, St Cuthbert and St Giles. The local historian Dorothy Silvester has identified a "parish line", which divided northern from southern counties of England and Wales ( Denbighshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and northern Yorkshire). North of this line, parishes tended on the whole to be large, containing several townships. However, south of this line, parishes tended to contain single townships. A township appointed
overseers of the poor An overseer of the poor was an official who administered poor relief such as money, food, and clothing in England and various other countries which derived their law from England such as the United States. England In England, overseers of the po ...
and surveyors of highways in the same way as a parish and they financed their obligations by levying a rate, in the same way as parish officials. The original definition of a civil parish was any place in respect of which a rate could lawfully be levied. Most townships disappeared before 1866 either being included into adjacent civil parishes or gaining their own separate civil parish status.


Modern use

The use of the term 'township' persisted and has recently been revived as a name for subdivisions of boroughs in northern England. For example, the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale has township committees, and the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan divides the borough into ten townships, which each have a township forum. Wirral is divided into forty-four, for planning purposes. In Sheffield, Mosborough ward, which includes the districts of Halfway, Mosborough village, Waterthorpe, and Westfield, is one of the 28 electoral wards in the City of Sheffield. It is located in the eastern part of the city and is one of the wards that make up the Sheffield Attercliffe parliamentary constituency. The area is often referred to as Mosborough Townships, but this usage does not have any administrative significance. In Shropshire, the name of Ruyton-XI-Towns preserves the memory only of medieval townships, eleven of which had been united under one manor; in Herefordshire, Bromyard still has areas referred to by the names of three townships besides that of the central town area.


References


Further reading

* {{Citation , first = P , last = Riden , title = Record Sources for Local History , publisher = Batsford , place = London , year = 1987 , pages = 92–99. Civil parishes in England Defunct types of subdivision in the United Kingdom Former subdivisions of England England