The Local Government Act 1888 replaced the hundreds and liberties with urban and rural districts, based on the sanitary districts of the Poor Law Unions which existed in parallel with the hundreds/liberties from 1834.
While numerous minor changes took place during that period, the general pattern remained stable.
(Civil parish is used here in the sense of an "area for which a poor rate is or can be assessed", a unit which has thus been in existence de facto from the establishment of the Elizabethan Poor Law; the term itself dates from mid 19th century legislation such as the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866.)
The following are the units existing immediately prior to the act of 1834, with some additional changes noted up to the reforms of the Local Government Act 1894 and their immediate aftermath.
Prior to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, the hundreds were grouped, mostly for taxation purposes, by divisions, which were rearranged by local act of Parliament[which?]