§ Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East)Today is an appropriate day to present this petition calling for the restoration of Lancashire's historic county boundaries. Today is the birthday of both Her Majesty the Queen, the Duke of Lancaster, and also the noble Earl of Derby, whose ancestor presented Bolton with its first charter in 1253, and who shares the same ancestor with Her Majesty in the Tudor Lancastrian John of Gaunt.
The petition says: 1147
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.The Humble Petition of the Friends of Real Lancashire shewethThat the petitioners wish that the Metropolitan Counties of Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria be abolished and the real and historic county of Lancashire be restored.Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House will call on Her Majesty's Government to place the whole of the county of Lancashire under the jurisdiction of the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, to include Lancashire in the postal address, to erect signs bearing the county name where roads enter Lancashire and to remove signs naming the defunct administrative areas of Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria, and to show the real boundaries of Lancashire on all maps.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
§ To lie upon the Table.