The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of local government in England is not uniform, there are currently four principal types of district-level subdivision. There are a total of 326 districts made up of 36 metropolitan boroughs, 32 London boroughs, 201 non-metropolitan districts, 55 unitary authorities, as well as the City of London and the Isles of Scilly which are also districts, but do not correspond to any of these categories. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs; these are purely honorific titles, and do not alter the status of the district. All boroughs and cities, and a few districts, are led by a mayor who in most cases is a ceremonial figure elected by the district council, but – after local government reform – is occasionally a directly elected mayor who makes most of the policy decisions instead of the council.

Before the introduction of districts, the basic unit of local government in England was the civil parish, while Hundreds were the only widely used administrative unit between the parish and the county in size. In 1834 parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law. These areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, which had been created in 1889. Another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London.

England ⁱ/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.

John David Penrose (born 22 June 1964) is the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare. He is Minister for Tourism & Heritage at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, he went to Ipswich School. He studied at Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a BA in Law in 1986. He received an MBA from Columbia University in 1991.

He was a Bank Trading Floor Risk Manager at JP Morgan from 1986–90, then a management consultant at McKinsey & Company from 1992-4. He was Commercial Director of the Academic Books Division at Thomson Publishing in Andover from 1995-6, then Managing Director of Schools Book Publishing at Longman (Pearson PLC), publishing school textbooks for the UK and parts of Africa. He was chairman of Logotron Ltd in Cambridge. (also owned by Pearson). In 1998, he was in charge of research at the Bow Group.

He was elected in the 2005 general election, winning the seat from the Liberal Democrat Brian Cotter and retained his seat in the 2010 general election. He had previously contested Weston-super-Mare unsuccessfully in 2001, and Ealing Southall in 1997.

Bernard Devlin (December 15, 1824 – February 8, 1880) was an Irish-born lawyer, journalist and political figure in Quebec. He represented Montreal Centre in the Canadian House of Commons from 1875 to 1878 as a Liberal member.

He was born in County Roscommon, the son of Owen Devlin and Catherine Mellany, and studied medicine with his uncle, Charles Devlin of County Mayo, and in Dublin. He came to Quebec City with his father in 1844. Not allowed to practise medicine because of his age, Devlin established a newspaper the Freeman’s Journal and Commercial Advertiser. He later went to Montreal, studied law with Edward Carter, was called to the Lower Canada bar in 1847 and set up practice in Montreal. In 1848, he married Anna Eliza Hickey. He served on the city council for Montreal and was an officer in the militia, serving during the Fenian raids and reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Devlin was called to the Ontario bar in 1868.

Devlin ran unsuccessfully in Montreal West against Thomas D'Arcy McGee in 1867 for a seat in the House of Commons. He was defeated by Michael Patrick Ryan in the riding of Montreal Centre in 1874 but was elected by acclamation in January 1875 after Ryan's election was overturned. His first election was appealed but he was elected again by acclamation in November of the same year. He spoke in favour of amnesty for Louis Riel and Ambroise-Dydime Lépine. Devlin was defeated by Ryan in 1878 when he ran for reelection. Devlin died in Denver, Colorado, where he had gone to recover from illness, at the age of 55 and was buried in the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.

Ryan Neil ten Doeschate (born 30 June 1980) is a South African-born cricketer who plays internationally for the Netherlands due to his Dutch ancestry. He has played cricket for Essex since 2003.

He matriculated at Fairbairn College in Goodwood, near Cape Town in 1998. Whilst at school, he excelled at both rugby and cricket.

As of 19 February 2012, ten Doeschate has a One-Day International batting average of 67.00 from 33 matches. This is presently the highest batting average in ODI cricket by a batsman with more than 20 innings, a considerable margin ahead of second place (Hashim Amla, who averages 56.35), although his average is substantially skewed by the fact that the Netherlands seldom plays ODIs against top teams. Nevertheless, his record against Test playing nations is still very good, an average of 51.67 from eight matches, and he holds the record for the highest individual innings by a player from an Associate Nation playing against a Test Nation, 119, scored in Nagpur against England during the 2011 World Cup. He also possesses a List A average of 45.83, which is inside the top twenty in history; and, since it was largely attained in English and South African domestic competition, is much less skewed than his ODI average.