The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial topographical

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologie ...

first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...

. Its six volumes have a brief article on each

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

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

, and

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

, describing their political and physical features and naming the principal people of each place. The publishers were A. Fullarton and Co., of London & Edinburgh. The work is a companion to Wilson's ''

Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland The ''Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland'' is a topographical dictionary first published in parts between 1854 and 1857, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It also appeared in two undated volumes in 1868 and was described as "A Dictionary of S ...

'', published in parts between 1854 and 1857. The text of the Imperial Gazetteer is available online in two forms, as images you pay for on the Ancestry web site,Gazetteers
at ukgenealogy.co.uk (accessed 4 November 2007) and as freely accessible searchable text on ''

A Vision of Britain through Time The Great Britain Historical GIS (or GBHGIS) is a spatially enabled database that documents and visualises the changing human geography of the British Isles, although is primarily focussed on the subdivisions of the United Kingdom mainly over the ...

'',Descriptive Gazetteer Search
at visionofbritain.org.uk (accessed 1 October 2008) which also accesses Groome's ''Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland'' and the Bartholomew ''Gazetteer of the British Isles''. Volumes 1–4 and 6 (i.e. all but volume 5) are available at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. However, it should be treated with some caution. The scale of the project was such that Wilson was unable to check all statements himself, and for many smaller places the information given is out of date or even wrong.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Volumes available online at

: :
Vol I: Aaron End – Chartley Holme
:
Vol II: Chart – Grasmere
:
Vol III: Grasmoor – Lees
:
Vol IV: Leescourt – Mounton
:
Vol VI: Sheffield – Zouch
Reference works in the public domain Books about England 1870 books 1871 books 1872 books Gazetteers

See also

References

External links