Natural Divisions of England: Discussion Author(s): Thomas Holdich, Dr. Unstead, Morley Davies, Dr. Mill, Mr. Hinks and C. B. Fawcett Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Feb., 1917), pp. 135-141 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1779342 Accessed: 27-06-2016 02:59 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:59:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms NATURAL DIVISIONS OF ENGLAND: DISCUSSION I35 Province Population in Area in Iooo Persons per Ca ital millions. sq. miles. sq. mile. cP rC-a North England ... 27 5'4 500 Newcastle. ' ? Yorkshire ... 3-8 5'I 750 Leeds. o Lancashire ... 6'I 17'6 4' 4 25'I I390 Manchester. P X Severn ..... 29 4'7 620 Birmingham. Trent .. 21 5'5 380 Nottingham. - . Bristol 3... ... I3 2-8 460 Bristol. g Cornwall and Devon I'o 36 4'I 9'8 240 Plymouth. c) : Wessex ... ... I3 2-9 450 Southampton. l'South-east England I7 30 570 ? o = Central England I'2 4'I 290 Oxford. o 'b East England ... 6 6'o 5 270 Cambridge. X XLondon ...... 7'7 22 ) 3500 London. Wales ... 2'3 8'1 280 Cardiff. Scotland ... ... 4'8 300 I60 Edinburgh. Ireland ... .. 4'4 32'6 130 Dublin. Sir THOMAS HOLDICH: We are here this afternoon to listen to an interest- ing paper by Mr. Fawcett on the Natural Divisions of England, and without any further preliminaries I will ask him to read his paper. Mr. Fawcett then read the paier i5rinted above and a discussion followed. Sir THOMAS HOLDICH: I am sure you will agree with me that Mr. Fawcett has given us what may be considered to be an ideal scheme for the redistribu- tion of provinces in England for the purposes of local administration. It would have been of very considerable interest to us all, I think, if he had extended his researches-which are evidently very considerable-a little further, to the dis- tressful country of Ireland. I have studied a similar question as regards Ireland, and I confess it seems to me that there are problems there which are almost incapable of solution. In partitioning up England as he has done he has observed what I have always considered to be a strictly scientific system of placing his boundaries; they are selected first of all with a full consideration of the sentiments and the idiosyncrasies of the people who are thus partitioned off, and they are plain and easily distinguishable, following fairly recognizable geo- graphical features. But there must be gentlemen here who are far better acquainted with the subject than I am, and I hope that some of them will add to the interest of the afternoon by stating their views. Dr. UNSTEAD : I have hesitation in advancing criticisms, bearing in mind the necessity for much more study of the paper than I have had an oppor- tunity of devoting to it; but I may say that after reading Mr. Fawcett's paper and listening to his exposition I find I am in very considerable agreement with him as regards the particular delimitations he has made. I question, however, several of the fundamental assumptions on which the delimitation is based. In the first place, it seems to me that the problem of the division of England into administrative areas is really not a geographical problem. The geographer may offer certain suggestions in regard to it, but it properly belongs to the sphere of public administration, in which much more than geographical con- siderations must be taken into account. The historian must be consulted, for a great many questions of the past are involved; the expert in administration who knows the advantages and disadvantages of working with certain types of boundaries and areas will have much to say ; others also should contribute, and then when all the contributions have been put together a solution may be This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:59:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 136 NATURAL DIVISIONS OF ENGLAND: DISCUSSION found. Finally, when some definite scheme is made after consideration of all the conditions, the geographer might criticize it from his particular point of view. However, assuming that a solution may be attempted in a Geographical Society, I hesitate to accept Mr. Fawcett's decision that England should not be treated as a unit, and that it should be divided up into a number of separate provinces. The reason given is that without such a division there would be a disparity in the importance of the different constituent parts of the British Isles, for Wales would have one unit of population as compared with two units in Ireland, two again in Scotland, and fourteen units in England; the suggestion of the paper is that English influence would dominate in a federal parliament. But would that domination be really affected by the division of England into some twelve provinces ? I take it that the federal parliament would deal with affairs in which the United Kingdom as a whole is concerned, and that the pro- vincial parliaments would deal with local affairs; in that case, would that federal parliament be dominated less by England because for local affairs there are provinces and provincial parliaments ? Moreover, this consideration leads to the observation that although the areas and populations of the provinces have been considered, the powers and functions of their parliaments have not been taken into account; yet surely these are integral parts of the problem; only when the powers and functions are deter- mined can appropriate units be decided upon. Are the provinces to deal with merely local affairs, or are they to deal with matters which affect the whole of England ? The latter would seem impracticable, but if the former is assumed the provincial parliaments would deal with almost the same matters with which the County Councils at present are concerned ; they become enlarged County Councils rather than subordinate parliaments. Then in that case would these provinces really be comparable with the other regions which Mr. Fawcett apparently has in mind-Scotland, Wales, and Ireland ? Are they of the same order of representation ? And in this connection another factor may be taken into account, namely, the possibility not only of decentralization in the govern- ment of the British Isles, but also that of the formation of an Imperial Parlia- ment. We may, and probably shall, see a reconstructed Empire with a common parliament for imperial affairs, with representation from Canada with its seven million people, for instance. How will these relatively small provinces of England compare with the immense Dominion of Canada ? Will there be two, or will there have to be three, ranks of Parliaments ? The existence of this problem, not referred to in the paper, might lead to a revision of the plan for the division of England. But assuming that such a division is to be made here in the Royal Geo- graphical Society, and that it is to be made on the scale of having some ten or twelve provinces in England, the actual delimitation is a very interesting study, and in that work of delimitation I find myself much more in agreement with the author. Mr. Fawcett has taken many geographical factors into account and shown great ability in their correlation. With many men, many opinions; one would wish to draw a boundary here, another would draw it there, and in regard to details discussion might be interminable. I would only suggest that it seems to me that the divisions should be approximately equal in import- ance: if one looks at them as marked upon the map the areas seem to be about equal, but when we consider them in regard to their population there is by no means the same equivalence. For instance, the south-western divisions of the Devonian peninsula and the Bristol region are each taken as one, but even This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 02:59:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms NATURAL DIVISIONS OF ENGLAND: DISCUSSION 137 if they are put together they have not the importance of several of the other divisions. Apart from this, I highly appreciate many of the points made by Mr. Fawcett; for instance, his lucid explanation of how it has come about that in- creases of population have shifted the centre of gravity of settlements and altered the position of suitable boundary-lines, and the happy illustration in the case of Wiltshire. The suggestions for new boundaries have been very skilfully con- trived and should provide valuable hints in connection with other geographical problems. As a minor point I would ask Mr. Fawcett to reconsider the title of his paper; when I first saw it I thought at once of the division of England into natural regions somewhat on the lines of those associated with the name of Prof.