Shires

The timeline on the history of ‘shires’ starts at 1066. There is a lot of history and not much consistency concerning the evolution of shires in Britain, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, who do it differently in each country.

I came away knowing that ‘shire’ morphed into sheriff, and Worcestershire sauce should be pronounced by the following rule -

Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far northeast of England, the word is pronounced /ʃaɪr/ (rhyming with "fire"). As a suffix in an English or Welsh place name, it is in most regions pronounced /-ʃər/ "shur", or sometimes /-ʃɪər/, a homophone of "sheer". Worcestershire (pronounced WOOS-tuhr-sheer) sauce was originally bottled in Worcester, England, in the 19th century by Lea & Perrins.

An article on the history of counties with lots of maps and a lot of not easily condensed

information about the layers of government which I think answers the question Tom asked can be found at -

-http://jonathan.rawle.org/hyperpedia/counties/history.php

From Wiki-

A shire is a traditional division found in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in Australia.

In Britain, "shire" is the original term for what is usually known as a county; the word county having been introduced at the Norman Conquest. The two are synonymous. Although in modern British usage counties are referred to as "shires" mainly in poetic contexts, terms such as Shire Hall remain common. Shire also remains a common part of many county names.

The first shires were created by the Anglo-Saxons in what is now central and southern England. The word is from Old English, scir, and appears to be allied to shear as it is a division of the land. The system was spread to most of the rest of England in tenth century.

The shire in early days was governed by an ealdorman and in the later Anglo-Saxon period by royal official known as a "shire reeve" or sheriff. The shires were divided into hundreds or wapentakes, although other less common sub-divisions existed.

The first shires of Scotland were created after the English model, possibly beginning in the tenth century. King David I more consistently created shires and appointed sheriffs across lowland Scotland. An alternative name for a shire was a "sheriffdom" until sheriff court reforms separated the two concepts. In Scotland the word "county" was not adopted for the shires. Although "county" appears in some texts, "shire" was the normal name until counties for statutory purposes were created in the nineteenth century.

Shire names in Britain and Ireland

"Shire" can also be used in a narrower sense, referring only to ancient counties ending in "shire". These counties are typically (though not always) named after their county town.

The suffix -shire is attached to most of the names of English, Scottish and Welsh counties. It tends not to be found in the names of shires which were pre-existing divisions. Essex, Kent and Sussex, for example, have never borne a -shire as each represents a former Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Similarly Cornwall was a Welsh kingdom before it became an English shire.