Essex ( ) is a county in the East of England. The county town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches .

History

main: History of Essex

In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary to the decline of Atlantic Sea trade as roads and better in-land trade-routes were established in Romanized Gaul. Catuvellaunian and Trinovantian territory was the first to be annexed by the Roman Emperor Claudius in AD 43 when he began his invasion of Britain (Cunliffe, 2001).

The name Essex originates in the Anglo-Saxon period of the early Middle Ages and has its root in the Old English Ēastseaxe (i.e. the "east Saxons"), the eastern kingdom of the Saxons. The East Saxon lands bordered those of the Angle peoples of East Anglia (the latter comprising Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire).

The Kingdom of Essex was traditionally founded by Aescwine in 527 AD, occupying territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating much of what would later become Middlesex and Hertfordshire, though its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lee. Colchester in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunum, and was sufficiently well-developed to have its own mint.

Subsequently the Kingdom of Essex was subsumed into the Kingdom of England and Essex eventually became the historic county.

Essex County Council was formed in 1889. However, the County Borough of West Ham, and from 1915 the County Borough of East Ham, formed part of the county but were not under county council control.Vision of Britain - Essex admin county (historic map) A few parishes were transferred to other counties at this time; parts of Haverhill, Kedington, and Ballingdon-with-Brundon went to Suffolk, and Great & Little Chishill and Heydon to Cambridgeshire.Southend-on-Sea also formed a county borough from 1914 to 1974.

The boundary with Greater London was established in 1965 when East Ham and West Ham county boroughs and the Barking, Chingford, Dagenham, Hornchurch, Ilford, Leyton, Romford, Walthamstow and Wanstead and Woodford districts were transferred to form the London boroughs of Barking, Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest. Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. In 1998 the districts of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock separated from the shire county of Essex becoming unitary districts.