District in United Kingdom

Definition of District

In accordance with the work A Dictionary of Law, this is a description of District :

A *local government area in England (outside Greater London) consisting of a division of a *county. The Local Government Act 1972 divided the 6 metropolitan and 39 nonmetropolitan counties in England into 36 metropolitan and 296 nonmetropolitan districts, respectively, and the 8 counties in Wales into 37 districts. The 6 metropolitan counties were abolished by the Local Government Act 1985 and their functions transferred generally to the metropolitan district councils, which became single-tier authorities. A district may be styled a borough by royal charter granted on the petition of the *district council. The Welsh counties and districts were abolished by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, being replaced on 1 April 1996 by 22 unitary authorities (*unitary authority) (11 counties and 11 county boroughs). Unitary authorities have been phased in in certain nonmetropolitan areas of England.

History

District, a word denoting in its more general sense, a tract or extent of a country, town, &c., marked off for administrative or other purposes, or having some special and distinguishing characteristics. The medieval Latin districtus (from distringere, to distrain) is defined by Du Cange as Territorium feudi, seu tractus, in quo Dominus vassallos et tenentes suos distringere potest; and as justitiae exercendae in eo tractu facultas. It was also used of the territory over which the feudal lord exercised his jurisdiction generally. It may be noted that distringere had a wider significance than “to distrain” in the English legal sense (see Distress). It is defined by Du Cange as compellere ad aliquid faciendum per mulctam, poenam, vel capto pignore.

In English usage, apart from its general application in such forms as postal district, registration district and the like, “district” has specific usages for ecclesiastical and local government purposes. It is thus applied to a division of a parish under the Church Building Acts, originally called a “perpetual curacy,” and the church serving such a division is properly a “district chapel.” Under the Local Government Act of 1894 counties are divided for the purposes of the act into urban and rural districts.

In (…) India the word is used to represent the zillah, an administrative subdivision of a province or presidency.

In the United States of America the word has many administrative, judicial and other applications. In South Carolina it was used instead of “county” for the chief division of the state other than in the coast region. In the Virginias, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and Maryland it answers to “township” or precinct, elsewhere the principal subdivision of a county. It is used for an electoral “division,” each state being divided into Congressional and senatorial districts; and also for a political subdivision ranking between an unorganized and an organized Territory—e.g., the District of Columbia and Alaska.(1)

Resources

Notes and References

1. Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)

See Also

Local Government Commission for England

Further Reading