Status details for Sheriffdom

Full Description:

A Sheriffdom was defined as a group of parishes over which the sheriff, originally had jurisdiction and later, administrated from the twelfth century to 1975. The sheriff was appointed by local judges and crown officials. Historically this position, from shire-reeve to county official, has been inferred as the mainstay of the then administrative system, acting as the principal channel between the government and the county community and court. The sheriff was also much involved in the profitible management of the royal estates and tax gathering within their own parishes, activities curtailed through the diverging of some county and sheffidom boundaries in the mid-nineteenth century.