Barron, with power to add to their number, be appointed a Committee 

 to prepare a scheme for the preservation and utilization of Court Rolls ; 

 this was carried unanimously. 



Dr. Hen. Laver, F.S.A., President of the Essex Archa2oIogical 

 Society, introducing the subject of the preservation of County 

 Boundaries, said that the immediate cause was the proposal of the 

 Local Government Board to take ten parishes from Essex and to add 

 them to Hertfordshire. He thought all counties were interested, since 

 similar proposals were likely to be made affecting them. 



The cause of the proposal was the difficulty arising in administra- 

 tion, from the fact that unions frequently comprised parts of two or 

 more counties, and hence arose troubles as to swine fever, police, &c. 

 Unions were not permanent, and he could see no reason that the Local 

 Government Board could not make arrangements for Counties to 

 work together and avoid this alteration of boundaries that was so 

 objectionable. It was true that the Local Government Board had 

 stated that it was not intended to interfere with the position of these 

 parishes as part of the County of Essex, but in a previous case 

 in which the same assurance had been given two parishes had been 

 taken from Essex and added to Cambridgeshire, and were now shown 

 as part of Cambridgeshire in the official Ordnance maps. 



Mr. Willis-Bund said that his experience as Chairman of a 

 County Council was that the difficulties as to swine fever and police 

 were easy to get over by a little management. The real trouble was 

 caused by a clause in the District Council Act of 1894. No doubt, 

 with a laudable view of preserving the integrity of the Counties, this 

 Act laid down that where a Union was in two or more counties there 

 must be a District Council for each County. In consequence the 

 smaller members were in constant trouble from the difficulty of finding 

 satisfactory representatives and rates. It was very desirable that this 

 part of the .Act should be repealed. 



The Rev. T. Auden, F.S.A., mentioned that trouble from the 

 alteration of boundaries was by no means confined to the counties. 

 In Shropshire great alterations were in progress in the Lichfield and 

 Hereford dioceses owing to the creation of the New Bishopric of 

 Birmingham. One entire rural Deanery was to be transferred from 

 the diocese with which it had been connected for centuries. 



Mr. Chalkley Gould mentioned that this same plan to absorb the 

 parishes of Essex had been made by the Herts County Council in 

 1894, but on finding the strong feeling in Essex on the subject the 

 Chairman of the Herts County Council had at once gracefully with- 

 drawn the proposal. 



Mr. R. T. Andrews, speaking as delegate of the East Herts 

 Archaeological Society, said that his Society — and he believed the 

 people of Herts generally — would be unwilling that a proposal so 

 repugnant to the people of Essex should be carried out. 



