Part 1
# Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "England" to "English Finance": Volume 9, Slice 4 ### By Various
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Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective paragraphs.
(2) The following typographical error has been corrected:
Article ENGLISH FINANCE: "Almost at the opening of the age of parliamentary taxation one of the older sources of revenue ceased. The pressure of popular opinion forced Edward I. to decree the expulsion of the Jews (1290), though he naturally desired to retain such profitable subjects." 'opinion' amended from 'opinon'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME IX, SLICE IV
England to English Finance
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
ENGLAND ENGLEWOOD ENGLAND, THE CHURCH OF ENGLISH CHANNEL ENGLEFIELD, SIR FRANCIS ENGLISH FINANCE ENGLEHEART, GEORGE
ENGLAND. Geographical usage confines to the southern part of the island of Great Britain the name commonly given to the great insular power of western Europe.[1] In this restricted sense the present article deals with England, the predominant partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, both as containing the seat of government and in respect of extent, population and wealth.
1. TOPOGRAPHY.
England extends from the mouth of the Tweed in 55° 46' N. to Lizard Point in 49° 57' 30" N., in a roughly triangular form. The base of the triangle runs from the South Foreland to Land's End W. by S., a distance of 316 m. in a straight line, but 545 m. following the larger curves of the coast. The east coast runs N.N.W. from the South Foreland to Berwick, a distance of 348 m., or, following the coast, 640 m. The west coast runs N.N.E. from Land's End to the head of Solway Firth, a distance of 354 m., or following the much-indented coast, 1225 m. The total length of the coast-line may be put down as 2350 m.,[2] out of which 515 m. belong to the western principality of Wales.[3] The most easterly point is at Lowestoft, 1° 46' E., the most westerly is Land's End, in 5° 43' W. The coasts are nowhere washed directly by the ocean, except in the extreme south-west; the south coast faces the English Channel, which is bounded on the southern side by the coast of France, the two shores converging from 100 m. apart at the Lizard to 21 at Dover. The east coast faces the shallow North Sea, which widens from the point where it joins the Channel to 375 m. off the mouth of the Tweed, the opposite shores being occupied in succession by France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark. The west coast faces the Irish Sea, with a width varying from 45 to 130 m.
+---------------------+-------------+-------------+ | | Area | | | Counties. | Statute | Population. | | | Acres. | 1901. | +---------------------+-------------+-------------+ | Bedfordshire | 298,494 | 171,240 | | Berkshire | 462,208 | 256,509 | | Buckinghamshire | 475,682 | 195,764 | | Cambridgeshire | 549,723 | 190,682 | | Cheshire | 657,783 | 815,099 | | Cornwall | 868,220 | 322,334 | | Cumberland | 973,086 | 266,933 | | Derbyshire | 658,885 | 620,322 | | Devonshire | 1,667,154 | 661,314 | | Dorsetshire | 632,270 | 202,936 | | Durham | 649,352 | 1,187,361 | | Essex | 986,975 | 1,085,771 | | Gloucestershire | 795,709 | 634,729 | | Hampshire | 1,039,031 | 797,634 | | Herefordshire | 537,363 | 114,380 | | Hertfordshire | 406,157 | 250,152 | | Huntingdonshire | 234,218 | 57,771 | | Kent | 995,014 | 1,348,841 | | Lancashire | 1,203,365 | 4,406,409 | | Leicestershire | 527,123 | 434,019 | | Lincolnshire | 1,693,550 | 498,847 | | Middlesex | 181,320 | 3,585,323 | | Monmouthshire | 341,688 | 292,317 | | Norfolk | 1,308,439 | 460,120 | | Northamptonshire | 641,992 | 338,088 | | Northumberland | 1,291,530 | 603,498 | | Nottinghamshire | 539,756 | 514,578 | | Oxfordshire | 483,626 | 181,120 | | Rutland | 97,273 | 19,709 | | Shropshire | 859,516 | 239,324 | | Somersetshire | 1,043,409 | 508,256 | | Staffordshire | 749,602 | 1,234,506 | | Suffolk | 952,710 | 384,293 | | Surrey | 485,122 | 2,012,744 | | Sussex | 933,887 | 605,202 | | Warwickshire | 577,462 | 897,835 | | Westmorland | 503,160 | 64,303 | | Wiltshire | 879,943 | 273,869 | | Worcestershire | 480,560 | 488,338 | | Yorkshire | 3,882,328 | 3,584,762 | +---------------------+-------------+-------------+ | Total | 32,544,685 | 30,807,232 | +---------------------+-------------+-------------+
The area of England and Wales is 37,327,479 acres or 58,324 sq. m. (England, 50,851 sq. m.), and the population on this area in 1901 was 32,527,843 (England, 30,807,232). The principal territorial divisions of England, as of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, are the counties, of which England comprises 40. Their boundaries are not as a rule determined by the physical features of the land; but localities are habitually defined by the use of their names. A list of the English counties (excluding Wales) is given in the table above.[4]
_Hills._--As an introduction to the discussion of the natural regions into which England is divided (Section II.), and for the sake of comparison of altitudes, size of rivers and similar details, the salient geographical features may be briefly summarized. The short land-frontier of England with Scotland (its length is only 100 m.) is in great measure a physical boundary, as considerable lengths of it are formed on the east side by the river Tweed, and on the west by Kershope Burn, Liddel Water, and the river Sark; while for the rest it follows pretty closely the summit of the Cheviot Hills, whose highest point is the Cheviot (2676 ft.). A narrow but well-marked pass or depression, known as the Tyne Gap, is taken to separate the Cheviot system from the Pennine Chain, which is properly to be described as a wide tract of hill-country, extending through two degrees of latitude, on an axis from N. by W. to S. by E. The highest point is Cross Fell (2930 ft.). On the north-west side of the Pennine system, marked off from it by the upper valleys of the rivers Eden and Lune, lies the circular hill-tract whose narrow valleys, radiating from its centre somewhat like wheel-spokes, contain the beautiful lakes which give it the celebrated name of the Lake District. In this tract is found the highest land in England, Scafell Pike reaching 3210 ft. East of the Pennines, isolated on three sides by lowlands and on the fourth side by the North Sea, lie the highmoors of the North Riding of Yorkshire, with the Cleveland Hills, and, to the south, the Yorkshire Wolds of the East Riding. Neither of these systems has any great elevation; the moors, towards their north-western edge, reaching an extreme of 1489 ft. in Urra Moor. The tableland called the Peak of Derbyshire, in the south of the Pennine system, is 2088 ft. in extreme height, but south of this system an elevation of 2000 ft. is not found anywhere in England save at a few points on the south Welsh border and in Dartmoor, in the south-west. Wales, on the other hand, projecting into the western sea between Liverpool Bay and the estuary of the Dee on the north, and the Bristol Channel on the south, is practically all mountainous, and has in Snowdon, in the north-west, a higher summit than any in England--3560 ft. But the midlands, the west, and the south of England, in spite of an absence of great elevation, contain no plains of such extent as might make for monotony. The land, generally undulating, is further diversified with hills arranged in groups or ranges, a common characteristic of which is a bold face on the one hand and a long gentle slope, with narrow valleys deeply penetrating, on the other. Southward from the Pennines there may be mentioned, in the midlands, the small elevated tract of Charnwood Forest (Bardon Hill, 912 ft.) in Leicestershire, and Cannock Chase (775 ft.) and the Clent Hills (928 ft.), respectively north and south of the great manufacturing district of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Of the western counties, the southern half of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire are generally hilly. Among the Shropshire Hills may be mentioned the isolated Wrekin (1335 ft.), Long Mynd (1674 ft.) and the Clee Hills (Brown Clee, 1805 ft.). The long ridge of the Black Mountain reaches an extreme height of 2310 ft. on the Welsh border of Herefordshire. The Malvern Hills on the other side of the county, which, owing to their almost isolated position among lowlands, appear a far more prominent feature, reach only 1395 ft. In western Monmouthshire, again belonging to the south Welsh system, there are such heights as Sugar Loaf (1955 ft.) and Coity (1905 ft.).
[Illustration: Map of England and Wales]
In the south midlands of England there are two main ranges of hills, with axes roughly parallel. The western range is the Cotteswold Hills of Gloucestershire and the counties adjacent on the east running S.W. and N.E. Its highest point is Cleeve Cloud (1134 ft.). The uplands of Northamptonshire continue this range north-eastward, decreasing in elevation. The eastern range, beginning in Wiltshire, runs E.N.E. as the White Horse Hills (856 ft. at the highest point), and after the interruption caused by the gap or narrow valley by which the river Thames penetrates the hills near Goring, continues N.E. as the Chiltern Hills (850 ft.). The East Anglian ridge continues the line E.N.E., gradually decreasing in altitude. In the south-east of England, the North and South Downs are both well-defined ranges, but are characterized by a number of breaches through which rivers penetrate, on the one hand to the Thames or the North Sea and on the other to the English Channel. Leith Hill in the North Downs reaches 965 ft., and Butser Hill in the South Downs 889 ft.; Blackdown and Hindhead, two almost isolated masses of high ground lying between the two ranges of the Downs towards their western extremity, are respectively 918 and 895 ft. in height. In the north of Hampshire along its boundary with Surrey and Berkshire, in the southern half of Wiltshire (where rises the upland of Salisbury Plain), in Dorsetshire, and the south of Somersetshire, the hills may be said to run in a series of connected groups. They cannot be defined as a single range, nor are they named, as a rule, according to the groups into which they fall, but the general title of the Western Downs is applied to them. One point only in all these groups exceeds 1000 ft. in altitude, namely, Inkpen Beacon (1011 ft.) in the extreme south-west of Berkshire, but heights above 900 ft. are not infrequent. In the northern part of Somersetshire, two ranges, short but well defined, lie respectively east and west of a low plain which slopes to the Bristol Channel. These are the Mendips (Black Down, 1068 ft.) and the Quantocks (Will's Neck, 1261 ft.). The Blackdown Hills, in south-western Somersetshire and eastern Devonshire, reach 1035 ft. in Staple Hill in the first-named county. In western Somersetshire and north Devonshire the elevated mass of Exmoor reaches 1707 ft. in Dunkery Beacon; and in south Devonshire the highest land in southern England is found in the similar mass of Dartmoor (High Willhays, 2039 ft.). The westward prolongation of the great south-western promontory of England, occupied by the county of Cornwall, continues as a rugged ridge broken by a succession of depressions, and exceeds a height of 800 ft., nearly as far as the point where it falls to the ocean in the cliffs of Land's End.
_Lowlands._--The localities of the more extensive lowlands of England may now be indicated in their relation to the principal hill-systems, and in this connexion the names of some of the more important rivers will occur. In the extreme north-west is the so-called Solway Plain, of no great extent, but clearly defined between the northern foothills of the Lake District and the shore of Solway Firth. In Lancashire a flat coastal strip occurs between the western front of the Pennine Chain and the Irish Sea, and, widening southward, extends into Cheshire and comprises the lower valleys of the Mersey and the Dee. In the preceding review of the English hill-systems it may have been observed that eastern England hardly enters into consideration. The reason now becomes clear. From Yorkshire to the flat indented sea-coast north of the Thames estuary, east of the Pennines and the slight hills indicated as the Northampton uplands, and in part demarcated southward by the East Anglian ridge in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, the land, although divided between a succession of river-systems, varies so little in level as to be capable of consideration as a single plain. Its character, however, varies in different parts. The Fens, the flat open levels in the lower basins of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse, only kept from their former marshy conditions by an extensive system of artificial drainage, and the similar levels round the head of the Humber estuary, differ completely in appearance from the higher and firmer parts of the plain. The coast-land north of the mouth of the Thames is a low plain; and on the south coast somewhat similar tracts are found in Romney Marsh, and about the shallow inlets (Portsmouth Harbour and others) which open from Spithead. The vales of Kent and Sussex are rich undulating lowlands within the area of the Weald, separated by the Forest Ridges, and enclosed by the North and South Downs. In the south-west there is a fairly extensive lowland in south Devonshire watered by the Exe in its lower course. But the most remarkable plain is that in Somersetshire, enclosed by the Mendips, the Western Downs, Blackdown Hills and the Quantocks and entered by the Parrett and other streams. The midlands, owing to the comparatively slight elevation of the land, are capable of geographical consideration as a plain. But it is not a plain in the sense of that of East Anglia. There is no quite level tract of great extent, excepting perhaps the fertile and beautiful district watered by the lower Severn and its tributary the Upper or Warwickshire Avon, overlooked by the Cotteswolds on the one hand and the Malvern and other hills on the other.
_Coast._--The coast-line of England is deeply indented by a succession of large inlets, particularly on the east and west. Thus, from north to south there are, on the east coast, the mouths of the Tyne and the Tees, the Humber estuary, the Wash (which receives the waters of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse), the Orwell-Stour, Blackwater and Thames-Medway estuaries. On the west there are Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay, the estuaries of the Mersey and Dee, Cardigan Bay of the Welsh coast, and the Bristol Channel and Severn estuary. In this way the land is so deeply penetrated by the water that no part is more than 75 m. from the sea. Thus Buckingham appears to be the most inland town in England, being 75 m. from the estuaries of the Severn, Thames and Wash; Coleshill, near Birmingham, is also almost exactly 75 m. from the Mersey, Severn and Wash.
The east and south coasts show considerable stretches of uniform uninflected coast-line, and except for the Farne Islands and Holy Island in the extreme north, the flat islands formed by ramifications of the estuaries on the Essex and north Kent coasts, and the Isle of Wight in the south, they are without islands. The west coast, on the other hand, including both shores of the great south-western promontory, is minutely fretted into capes and bays, headlands and inlets of every size, and an island-group lies off each of the more prominent headlands from Land's End northward. The formation of the coast varies from low, shifting banks of shingle or sand to majestic cliffs, and its character in different localities has been foreshadowed in the previous consideration of the hill-systems and lowlands. Thus in the north-east the coast is generally of no great elevation, but the foothills of the Cheviot and Pennine systems approach it closely. On the Yorkshire coast the Cleveland Hills and the high moors are cut off on the seaward side in magnificent cliffs, which reach the greatest elevation of sea-cliffs on the English coast (666 ft.). The Yorkshire Wolds similarly terminate seaward in the noble promontory of Flamborough Head. From this point as far south as the North Foreland of Kent the coast, like the land, is almost wholly low, though there are slight cliffs at some points, as along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, on which the sea constantly encroaches. On the south coast a succession of cliffs and low shores may be correlated with the main physical features of the land. Thus in succession there are the famous white cliffs about Dover, terminating the North Downs, the low coast of Romney Marsh, projecting seaward in Dungeness, the cliffs above Hastings, terminating an offshoot of the Forest Ridges, the low shore between Hastings and Eastbourne, to which succeeds the lofty Beachy Head, terminating the South Downs. A flat coast follows as far as Selsey Bill and Spithead, but the south coast of the Isle of Wight shows a succession of splendid cliffs. The shallow inlet of Poole Bay is followed by the eminence of St Alban's Head, and thereafter, right round the south-western promontory of England, the cliff-bound coast, with its bays and inlets closely beset with hills, predominates over the low shore-line, exhibits a remarkable series of different forms, and provides the finest scenery of its kind in England. The shores of the Severn estuary are low, but the Welsh coast, sharing the general character of the land, is more or less elevated throughout, though none of the higher mountain-masses directly approaches the sea. Low shores correspond to the plains of Cheshire, Lancashire and the Solway, while the intervening coast is of no great elevation, as only the foothills of the Lake District approach it with a gradual slope.
+---------------------------+--------+------------+ | Rivers. | Length | Drainage | | | Miles. | Area sq. m.| +---------------------------+--------+------------+ | 1. North-east-- | | | | Tweed[5] | 97 | 1870 | | Tyne | 80 | 1130 | | Wear | 60 | 458 | | Tees | 85 | 708 | | | | | | 2. East-- | | | | Humber system[6] | ·· | 9293 | | Witham | 80 | 1079 | | Welland | 70 | 760 | | Nene | 90 | 1077 | | Ouse (Great) | 160 | 2607 | | Yare | 60 | 880 | | Stour (Suffolk-Essex) | 60 | 407 | | Thames[7] | 209 | 5924 | | | | | | 3. South-- | | | | Stour (Kent) | 40 | 370 | | Rother | 32 | 312 | | Arun | 43 | 370 | | Avon (Hampshire) | 60 | 1132 | | Exe | 55 | 584 | | Tamar | 58 | 384 | | | | | | 4. Bristol Channel | | | | (south-west)-- | | | | Torridge | 45 | 336 | | Taw | 48 | 455 | | Parrett | 37 | 562 | | Severn[8] [9] | 210 | 6850 | | Usk[9] | 70 | 540 | | | | | | 5. North-west-- | | | | (a) Cheshire-Lancashire--| | | | Dee[9] | 70 | 813 | | Mersey[10] | 70 | 1596 | | Ribble | 65 | 585 | | (b) Solway-- | | | | Eden | 70 | 1300 | +---------------------------+--------+------------+
A great extent of the English coast is constantly undergoing visible alteration, the sea in some instances receding from the land, and in others gaining upon it. The whole of Romney Marsh, in Kent and Sussex, formerly constituted an arm of the sea, where vessels rode in deep water, carrying produce to ports no longer in existence. Lydd and Romney, though maritime still in name, retaining some of the ancient privileges of the Cinque Ports, have become, through changes in the coast-line, small inland towns; and the same has been the fate of Rye, Winchelsea, and other places in that district. Again, the Isle of Thanet, in the north-eastern corner of Kent, has practically ceased to be an island. The wide estuary of the sea separating it from the mainland, through which ships sailed from the English Channel into the Thames, using it as the shortest route from the south to London, has entirely disappeared, leaving only a flat lowland traversed by branches of the river Stour to mark its former existence. The sea is encroaching over a considerable extent of coast-line on the North Sea as well as on the English Channel. Ravenspur, once an important town of Yorkshire, where Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., landed in 1399, is now submerged; and Dunwich and other ancient ports in East Anglia have met with the same fate. The process of destruction, slow in some places, is so rapid in others that it can be traced even from month to month--the incessant work of the waves washing away the soft strata at the base of the cliffs and leaving the summits unsupported. Many cliffs of the east coast, from the Humber to the mouth of the Thames, are suffering from this destructive action, and instances also occur on the south coast. A royal commission on Coast Erosion was appointed to inquire into this question in 1906 (see _Report_, 1907 sqq.).
Except along the centre of the Irish Sea, at one point off the Tweed and one between Devon and Normandy, the depth of water between England and the nearest land nowhere exceeds 50 fathoms.
_Rivers._--The variations in length of the general slope of the land towards successive natural divisions of the coast may be illustrated by a comparative table of the mileage and drainage areas of the principal English rivers. The mileage does not take account of the lesser sinuosities of rivers.
With the exception of those in the Lake District (q.v.) the lakes of England are few and insignificant. A number of small meres occur in a defined area in Cheshire. (O. J. R. H.)
II. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
The object of this section is to give a physical description of England and Wales according to natural regions, which usually follow the geology of the country very closely; although the relationship of configuration and geology is not so simple or so clearly marked as in Scotland.
The land is highest in the west and north, where the rocks also are oldest, most disturbed, and hardest, and the land surface gradually sinks towards the east and south, where the rocks become successively less disturbed, more recent, and softer. The study of the scenery of England and Wales as a whole, or the study of orographical and geological maps of the country, allows a broad distinction to be drawn between the types of land-forms in the west and in the east. This distinction is essential, and applies to all the conditions of which geography takes account. The contrasted districts are separated by an intermediate area, which softens the transition between them, and may be described separately.