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Ariding is anadministrative jurisdiction orelectoral district, particularly in several current or formerCommonwealth countries.[1]
The wordriding is descended from lateOld Englishþriðing or*þriding (recorded only in Latin contexts or forms, e.g.,trehing,treding,trithing, with Latin initialt here representing the Old English letterthorn). It came into Old English as a loanword fromOld Norseþriðjungr, meaning a third part (especially of a county) – the original "ridings", in the English counties of Yorkshire andLincolnshire, were in each case a set of three, though once the term was adopted elsewhere it was used for other numbers (compare tofarthings). The modern formriding was the result of the initialthbeing absorbed in the finalth ort of the wordsnorth,south,east andwest, by which it was normally preceded.[2][3][4]
Acommon misconception holds that the term arose from some association between the size of the district and the distance that can be covered or encircled on horseback in a certain amount of time (compare theWalking Purchase).
The term was used inAustralia as a division of someshire councils, similar to award incity,borough,town and many shire councils.[5]
The term was used in 19th-centuryCanada to refer to subdivisions of counties.
InCanadian politics,riding is a colloquial term for aconstituency orelectoral district. Officially,electoral district is generally used, although government documents sometimes use the colloquial term. In colloquial Canadian French, a riding is known ascomté, i.e., 'county', as the electoral districts in Quebec were historically identical to itscounties; the official French term iscirconscription.
The Canadian use ofriding is derived from theEnglish local government term, which was widely used in Canada in the 19th century. Most Canadian counties never had sufficient population to justify administrative subdivisions. Nonetheless, it was common, especially inOntario, to divide counties with sufficient population into multiple electoral districts, which thus became known as ridings in official documents. The term was used in the legal descriptions of the electoral districts of Canada West in theProvince of Canada. It was later used in the description of the new electoral districts which were created by theConstitution Act, 1867, for the first elections to the new federalHouse of Commons and the new provincialLegislative Assembly of Ontario, immediately followingConfederation. Soon after Confederation, the urban population grew (and more importantly, most city dwellers gained the franchise after property ownership was no longer required to gain the vote). Rural constituencies therefore became geographically larger through the 20th century and generally encompassed one or more counties each, and the wordriding was then used to refer to any electoral division.
The local association for a political party, which legally is known as an electoral district association, is often referred to as ariding association.
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The ancient county ofYorkshire had three ridings,[4][6][7]North,West andEast, originally each subdivided intowapentakes which were created by the Vikings. Note that the bounds of the City of York lay outside all the ridings to emphasise its political impartiality.
The Yorkshire ridings were in many ways treated as separate administrative counties, having had separatequarter sessions and also separatelieutenancies since theRestoration. This practice was followed by theLocal Government Act 1888, which made each of the three ridings anadministrative county with an elected county council. These county councils, along with the ancient lieutenancies, were abolished in 1974 under theLocal Government Act 1972.
A local government area,East Riding of Yorkshire, was created in 1996, but this does not cover the entire area of the former East Riding and includes areas from the historical West Riding.
According to the 12th century compilation known as theLeges Edwardi Confessoris, the riding was the third part of a county (provincia); to it causes were brought which could not be determined in the wapentake, and a matter which could not be determined in the riding was brought into the court of the shire.[2]
Riding courts were held after theNorman Conquest. A charter whichHenry I granted to the Church of St Peters at York mentionswapentacmot,tridingmot andshiresmot (-mot designates popular assemblies), and exemptions from suit to thethriding or riding are described in the charters of the Norman kings. As yet, however, the jurisdiction and functions of these courts have not been ascertained. It seems probable from the silence of the records that they had already fallen into disuse early in the 13th century.[2]
Although no longer having any administrative role, the ridings of Yorkshire still play a part as cultural entities – they are used for the names of a number of groups and organisations and some people in Yorkshire associate themselves with one riding or another (seecurrent usage of West Riding of Yorkshire).Winifred Holtby's 1936 novelSouth Riding and its adaptations were set in a fictional fourth riding. The title of the novel trilogyRed Riding byDavid Peace, set in Yorkshire, is a play on the word.
TheYorkshire Ridings Society calls for wider recognition of the historic borders of Yorkshire.
TheParts of Lindsey, one of theParts of Lincolnshire, also possessed ridings, in this case theNorth,West, andSouth ridings.
TheGrand Jury (Ireland) Act 1836 empowered theLord Lieutenant of Ireland to divideIrish counties into ridings with separateassizes held in different towns.[8] This was to allowCounty Tipperary to be divided in 1838 into aNorth Riding andSouth Riding, because thecounty town ofClonmel was inconveniently far south for jurors from the north.[9]Nenagh became the North Riding's assize town.[10] The ridings became separateadministrative counties, with minor boundary adjustments, under theLocal Government (Ireland) Act 1898,[11][12] and were redenominated as counties "North Tipperary" and "South Tipperary" under theLocal Government Act 2001.[13] They were merged back into a single County Tipperary by theLocal Government Reform Act 2014.[14]
County Cork had been divided in 1823 into East and West Ridings forquarter sessions andpetty sessions,[15] but not for assizes, and so had a singlecounty council after the 1898 changes.[12]County Galway from 1837 had East and West Ridings forRoyal Irish Constabulary andcounty surveyor purposes.[12] The Cork and Galway ridings became largely obsolete after independence in 1922,[12] although the names "Cork East[/West] Riding" were used for the relevantGarda Síochána (police)divisions into the 1990s.[16]
Ridings existed in ruralNew Zealand in the late 19th and early to mid 20th century as part of larger county councils in the area. For example, TheTaranaki County Council was divided into three separate ridings: Moa (south),Omata (west) andWaitara (east).[17]
As use of the automobile became more popular with the improvement of roads, combined with the concurrent trend ofurban drift (c. 1950s), the ridings were either merged back into their parent councils or separated off into county councils in their own right. The Taranaki County Council's three ridings eventually split, with the Omata Riding remaining part of the Taranaki County Council, the Moa riding merging with theInglewood Borough Council and the Waitara Riding becoming part of theClifton County Council.[18]
In1989 these were again merged, reorganised into district and/or city councils. For example, the above three all merged with theNew Plymouth Council and Waitara Borough Councils to form the New Plymouth District Council.
Examples:
Ridings are originallyScandinavian institutions.
InIceland the third part of athing which corresponded roughly to an English county was calledþrithjungr. The island ofGotland and the Swedish provincesNärke andHälsingland were also divided intoþrithjungar instead ofhundreds.
InNorway, theþrithjungr seems to have been an ecclesiastical division.
The term is analogous to fourths of a county, in a fashion similar to theold British farthing. They have also been found inIceland andGloucestershire.[citation needed] InJ. R. R. Tolkien's fictional worldMiddle-earth,The Shire, the homeland of thehobbits, is divided into farthings.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ridings".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 319.He subsequently became chief superintendent in charge of the old Cork East Riding Division, which has since been split into the two divisions of Cork City and Cork East.;"Indictable Offences per 1,000 population by Garda Divisions - 1991"(PDF).Report on Crime, 1991. Garda Síochána. August 1992. p. 6.
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