Last night we watched a programme presented by Nicholas Crane about towns – this one was on Perth, Scotland. The main theme was the desire of Perth to be considered a city not a town. Nicholas Crane thought people should be happy to be part of a town, since towns have values and attributes that are desirable. Generally the people of Perth didn’t share this view; they thought they were a city and if not they should be.
The whole business of becoming or not being a city was confusing to us. In New Zealand it is a matter of numbers. “A city, as defined in the Local Government Act 1974, must have a minimum population of 50,000, be predominantly urban in character, be a distinct entity and a major centre of activity within the region.” The ‘distinct entity’ part of this might be what causes some problems where we seem to have smaller city inside larger ones. People think of Auckland as the city, but it used to consist of at least two cities, maybe even three. It has now, by government decree, become one ‘super city’ (ie one mayor and council oversees what used to be divided up into smaller areas) and I presume that means Manukau City is no longer, but I am not sure about that.
I don’t know what happens when a city goes under 50,000 having been that. I see my home city of Invercargill is 50,365 or similar at the last census of 2006 (census of 2011 postponed because of earthquake), but it was up about 500 on the last census, which means it dropped under 50,000. I don’t remember anyone commenting on this.
The other way to be a city in New Zealand is to have a cathedral. Only Nelson is under the population size and has a cathedral. Around 1859 Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent to establish a Bishop’s See there and allow a cathedral. (I don’t know why.)
But Nicholas didn’t talk of population as a criterion for British cities. He said it was just up to the monarch. And Perth had never been a city – it had killed a king (James 1) in the 15th century and that was that. It had been granted borough status and that was all it ever had. (It does only have 42,000 people or so, so seems a bit small to me to be a city anyway.)
I am sure I had discussions about cities and numbers before on the BBC or somewhere, but I don’t recall anyone telling me it was an arbitrary matter decided by government and the Crown. I have no idea of the history of cities and don’t know if London’s growth was a late arrival in comparison to other European countries or if they all sprang up about the same time, and if European countries generally had the same structure in deciding citydom. And what would decide the monarch to grant city status to a place that didn’t already have it? Could she whip it away from somewhere that had been considered a city?
We went to Perth once – we couldn’t find a park anywhere so after driving round the city two or three times we left Perth, and headed to Scone. Where we have favourable memories of the Scottish Heritage or whatever it was country mansion/historical site. We didn’t belong to whatever was running it, but it was late in the day and we just wanted a meal, so they didn’t make us pay. The man at the gate told us we could bring a bottle of Oyster Bay chardonnay next time we were there. He might be waiting a while.

What a pity you didn't get a chance to wander round Perth Caro, it's a nice town and has some of the best preserved medieval archaeology in Scotland, all that soggy peaty soil is good for something. There's even some very delicate textiles that have survived and are in the museum there. This is a fragment of a silk hairnet.

Its city status is an odd tale, it was Scotland's capital until 1437, home to monarchs, with a cathedral, a court and a nearby palace but lost its city designation in 1975 during a rehash of local government. It got it back this year in a Jubilee competition as one of 25 towns to be granted city status but it's always been the City of Perth to us, the Fair City indeed.

Being a country boy what exactly is the allure of city status… there’s a plot to bring the towns of Poole Bournemouth and Christchurch together into city status… and they always say how much better it would be… personally I would hate to live in a city, far too many people cramped together in too small a space… now I have the peace and tranquillity of the forest, it’s wonderful.

As a child I was always told a cathedral was required for city status… and like a fool I drove for hours around Southampton with its estimated population of 239,700 looking for its cathedral, I never did find it.
On the other hand St David’s is the smallest city in Britain with a population of just over 1,600. City status was awarded in 1995… why?

I thought whether a place was classed as a town or city depended on the size of population? I remember in Australia some places getting their knickers in a twist because they were almost big enough to become cities, as if it mattered. But competitiveness is ever the driving force in some.

Or possibly Aust has a different system of classification to the UK? It will be worth looking into, if I ever find the time anyway.

There have been a number of recent "competitions" where towns could bid for city status - and there were lower population limits they had to exceed to be considered. The "cathedral" idea is old, but mistasken, it's the Royal Charter that matters - AIUI St David's got its status from its history, sort of capital of sort of Wales at one point.

normanhurst wrote:

As a child I was always told a cathedral was required for city status… and like a fool I drove for hours around Southampton with its estimated population of 239,700 looking for its cathedral, I never did find it.
On the other hand St David’s is the smallest city in Britain with a population of just over 1,600. City status was awarded in 1995… why?

There are no direct economic benefits to having a royal charter conferring city status in the UK. It merely gives the right to a locality to ‘officially’ call itself a city. It’s an honorary title – a sort of municipal equivalent to a knighthood.

The late David Amess MP (RIP), himself a knight, no doubt appreciated the concept. This is why he famously campaigned for Southend-on-Sea in Essex to be granted city status via royal charter. And why not? If the likes of Lisburn in County Antrim can be awarded city status despite being merely a dormitory town of Belfast, then why not Southend. And that’s the thing with so many royal charters, they’re quite arbitrary and a bit of a joke.

A common law city, on the other hand has a cathedral, and/or a university offering degrees in law and medicine, within its bounds. The waters were muddied here too, however, when all the polytechnics (and quite a few other higher education colleges) were turned into ‘universities’ from the 1990s onwards. As a result, the old joke whereby Oxford University alumni referred to Cambridge University as ‘Fen Poly’ now means little of nothing to today’s generation. Furthermore, Ormskirk in Lancashire, which doesn’t have a royal charter awarding it city status, does however have a ‘university’ (since 2006) which offers degrees in law (since 2018) and medicine (since 2020). So technically (excuse the pun) Ormskirk would now qualify as a ‘city’ in common law parlance. Of course, a university is established either by royal charter or thru privy council order, so we're back to square one.

Another measure relating to cities involves livestock. A freeman of the City of London, for instance, may have the right to drive his sheep across London Bridge but doesn’t have the right to sell those animals, and certainly doesn’t have the right to slaughter them, within the boundaries of the Square Mile. All-in-all the whole town v city debate is a bit of a shambles.

It appears that in death Sir David Amess has succeeded where he failed in life. It is to be hoped no denizens of other hamlets aspiring to city status (the "village" I live in is larger than at least 3 cities, 2 Welsh and one English) decides on similar promotional tctics.