The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial

topographical Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend

John Marius Wilson John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The '' Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (published 1870–1872), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was ...

. It contains a detailed description of

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

. Its six volumes have a brief article on each

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, and

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

, describing their political and physical features and naming the principal people of each place. The publishers were A. Fullarton and Co., of London & Edinburgh. The work is a companion to Wilson's ''

Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland The ''Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland'' is a topographical dictionary first published in parts between 1854 and 1857, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It also appeared in two undated volumes in 1868 and was described as "A Dictionary of ...

'', published in parts between 1854 and 1857. The text of the Imperial Gazetteer is available online in two forms, as images paid for on the

Ancestry An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...

web site, and as freely accessible searchable text on

A Vision of Britain through Time The Great Britain Historical GIS (or GBHGIS) is a spatially enabled database that documents and visualises the changing human geography of the British Isles, although is primarily focussed on the subdivisions of the United Kingdom mainly over the ...

, which also accesses Groome's ''Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland'' and the Bartholomew ''Gazetteer of the British Isles''. Volumes 1–4 and 6 (i.e. all but volume 5) are available at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. However, the source should be treated with some caution. The scale of the project was such that Wilson was unable to check all statements himself, and for many smaller places the information given is out of date or even wrong.

References

{{reflist

External links

* Volumes available online at

: :
Vol I: Aaron End – Chartley Holme
:
Vol II: Chart – Grasmere
:
Vol III: Grasmoor – Lees
:
Vol IV: Leescourt – Mounton
:
Vol VI: Sheffield – Zouch
Reference works in the public domain Books about England 1870 books 1871 books 1872 books Gazetteers

See also

References

External links