Campaigner who fought to restore the traditional counties of the UK
PAM MOORHOUSE, who has died aged 77, was a retired factory worker from Grimsby who spearheaded a campaign to restore the 92 traditional counties of the United Kingdom, whose role had, in her view, been eroded by government diktat.
The rot began with the Local Government Act 1972, implemented in 1974, which redrew the administrative map, supposedly to reflect changing economic realities. Ancient counties were renamed; others disappeared altogether; new counties were created from scratch. Out went Westmorland, Cumberland, Rutland and Yorkshire’s three Ridings, and in came Merseyside, Avon, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Humberside and Cleveland.
In 2015 Pam Moorhouse set up Pam’s County Petition to pressurise Parliament to legislate to re-establish the historic county as the focus for all cultural, sporting and other activities, and to remove all confusing clashes between county and local government names and names of public services.
“I remember in 1974, when the government sent people all over the country setting up new councils and telling people they had to live in new areas,” she said. “This was completely against the people’s wishes. It upset millions. Why was this acceptable or fair?
“To this day, councils continue wiping out our history and denying it... but people feel loyalty towards their traditional area. It is also vital young people know about what happened, otherwise our history will be lost forever.”
In 2017 she launched the British Counties Campaign with a letter to The Daily Telegraph, signed by several MPS, calling for legislation to “eliminate county confusion”, and a list of 600 towns and villages whose county location is unclear. There is confusion, for example, over whether Wigan is in Greater Manchester or Lancashire, or whether Stokenchurch is in Buckinghamshire or Oxfordshire.
By the time she died, Pam Moorhouse had travelled the country, made numerous media appearances, including on the Telegraph’s Chopper’s Podcast, and won the support of some 30 MPS.
Pamela Jean Moorhouse was born on February 18 1946 in Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Her mother was from Yorkshire; her father, whom she never met, was a US serviceman based in Gloucestershire during the Second World War. Pam took the name of her adoptive father when her mother married.
During Pam’s childhood the family moved to Grimsby, Lincolnshire, where, after leaving school, she worked in local fish and biscuit factories.
In 1974 Grimsby became part of the new administrative “county” of Humberside, along with Hull, northern Lincolnshire and parts of the old East Riding of Yorkshire. Further confusion was created in 1996 when Grimsby escaped Humberside to became part of North East Lincolnshire, after northern Lincolnshire was split up into North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire councils.
As the Grimsby Evening Telegraph observed in 2018, knowing which authority to call had become confusing: “Spotted a pothole? Call North East Lincolnshire Council. Been a victim of crime? Ring Humberside Police. Need emergency medical attention? Then it will be East Midlands Ambulance Service… ”
Pam Moorhouse’s national campaign began as a petition to abolish North and North East Lincolnshire and restore their communities to Lincolnshire.
She was particularly concerned about history books and museums referring to modern “county” names before they ever existed. Humberside and later North East Lincolnshire had been “forced” on people without any say in the matter. “They are deliberately wiping our history out,” she said. “This is about where people live – it is our history and it is important.”