Early History
Although entirely on the western side of the Pennine watershed, Saddleworth's
links with the County of York can be traced back in history to Norman
times. Saddleworth, or Quick as it was alternatively known, was throughout
the Middle Ages a Township in the Wappentake or Hundred of Agbrigg,
in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It had from the twelfth century been
part of the Honour of Pontefract, the Yorkshire fiefdom of the de Lacy
family, granted to them by the Conqueror.
By the beginning of the twentieth century the greater part of the ancient
Township of Saddleworth had administratively become an Urban District
within the West Riding of Yorkshire, as also had Springhead. The Roughtown
area of Saddleworth had earlier, in 1885, been incorporated into the
Municipal Borough of Mossley. A further tier of local government was
added by the creation of the West Riding County Council in 1888 with
responsibility for highways, education, health and policing.
This was the situation that pertained until 1974.
The Maud Report
In 1969 the Maud Report on Local Government Reorganisation recommended
that Saddleworth should be taken out of the administrative control of
Yorkshire and that some of its villages be governed from Oldham and
the rest from Ashton-under-Lyne. The whole would form part of a new
SELNEC (South East Lancashire, North East Cheshire) metropolitan area.
The idea of dividing the district between two local authorities was
not a popular one in Saddleworth. In October 1969, Saddleworth UDC rejected
the Maud report and the Government was informed of its views, particularly
about dividing Saddleworth up administratively.
Early in 1970 the Government White Paper was published. Although largely
following the Maud recommendations, the white paper did however concede
that in setting local authority boundaries the government would try
to avoid splitting Saddleworth.
A special meeting of the Saddleworth UDC was held on Monday, 11th May
1970 to decide on the prefered fate for Saddleworth. The council unanimously
decided that Saddleworth should not be split, furthermore that it should
be linked with the proposed SELNEC metropolitan area. The council divided
itself, however, when it came to deciding where its future lay and the
choice of Oldham was carried by only ten votes to seven with a further
seven members of the council absent. A motion to have a referendum to
see whether a link with the Ashton or the Oldham district was preferred
by the loacl people failed by 11 votes to 6.
At this meeting, in proposing the motions, Councillor G.E.Lord said
there were two further points to make clear. "Talk of Oldham was
merely a convenient term. That authority too would simply become part
of a new body, the name of which was yet undecided. Also, although Saddleworth
would join SELNEC, the county boundary would be unchanged, and Saddleworth
would remain part of Yorkshire".
This view was no doubt based on assurances in the Maud Report itself:
".....the fallacy that traditional county loyalties attach to the
administrative county. They do not: they attach to the geographical
county. The counties of England had commanded the allegiance of their
inhabitants for a thousand years before they became service-running
agencies and will continue to do so for a thousand years after they
cease to be such. It is only to the members and senior officers of a
county council that "the county" means the area whose services
they run". [Derek Senior. a member of the Royal Commission on local
government in 'the Maud Report', 1969].
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