ABSTRACT
For many years the traditional units of English local government were the parish, the borough and the county. As is the case with so many other British institutions, they originally fulfilled functions far different from those that they were later called on to undertake. The parish was in its early days an ecclesiastical unit, the centre of which was the parish church. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it acquired civil functions, such as the maintenance of highways and care of the poor. Borough status was granted by the Crown. Apart from the prestige of receiving a charter, the honour was a coveted one because it gave towns a certain amount of independence. Boroughs had their own courts, and they could also hold markets and sent representatives to Parliament. The county was originally the territory granted to an earl by the King in return for feudal service. In spite of the fact that a feudal lord’s fief is not necessarily the most suitable basis for modern administrative purposes, the basic outline of the English counties, particularly in the south of the country, has varied little from the Middle Ages.
