County corporate

[1] Around 1132, the Corporation of London was given the right to appoint two sheriffs to jointly serve the city and the county of Middlesex in which it was located, instead of the monarch appointing a Sheriff of Middlesex with jurisdiction over London as had previously been the case.

[2] Other boroughs later campaigned for the right to appoint their own sheriffs too, which would allow them to hold all types of court case.

Bristol's elevation to being its own county was partly on the basis of its growing size and importance, and partly because the borough straddled the counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset (both of which held their courts some distance from Bristol) which had caused problems with the administration of the borough.

[9] As well as larger towns and cities, some counties corporate were created to deal with specific local problems, such as border conflict (in the case of Berwick-upon-Tweed) and piracy (in the cases of Poole and Haverfordwest).

York was made a county corporate in 1396, and its jurisdiction was extended in 1449 to cover an area to the west of the city known as the Ainsty.

[11][12] Kingston upon Hull was made a county corporate in 1440, and its jurisdiction was extended in 1447 to cover an adjoining area to the west, which became known as Hullshire.

[16] There were disputes about the effect of the 1836 Act on Coventry, which were resolved in 1842 when the county corporate of Coventry was abolished completely and the city and surrounding villages were placed back under the authority of the Sheriff of Warwickshire.

In 1889 the sheriff's jurisdiction was reduced to just cover the city itself, on the creation of the separate positions of Sheriff of the County of London, covering the rest of the new County of London as lay outside the city itself, and Sheriff of Middlesex, covering the reduced area of Middlesex that was left outside the County of London.

[19] The practice of not appointing separate lieutenants for counties corporate was an informal convention at first, but was subsequently made statutory under the Militia Act 1882.

Those five became part of the administrative county in which they were situated for local government purposes, but retained their separate judicial functions and right to appoint their own sheriffs.

The counties corporate were not explicitly abolished by the 1971 Act, and they retained the right to appoint a sheriff, albeit no longer holding any powers.

Some of the new bodies created in 1974, including town councils for civil parishes and non-metropolitan district councils, were given the right to continue to appoint a ceremonial sheriff if that town or city had been a county corporate prior to 1974.

[27] Each county corporate contained rural "liberties" outside the city or town's municipal boundary; in six cases these were transferred to the adjacent county-at-large in 1840–2; the exceptions were Galway and Carrickfergus, where the municipal corporation was abolished instead.

The 1842 report of the Select Committee on Grand Jury Presentments of Ireland found none of the counties corporate except Drogheda derived any advantage from their status, and recommended they be absorbed as baronies of the adjoining county-at-large.

[29] The counties corporate were explicitly abolished in 1899 under the terms of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898.