A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.

County councils were formed in the United Kingdom in the late 19th century. In the various constituent countries of the United Kingdom councils had different powers and different memberships. Following local government reforms in the 1970s, county councils no longer exist in Scotland or Northern Ireland. In England they generally form the top level in a two-tier system of administration; in Wales they are unitary authorities.

In England county councils were introduced in 1889, and reformed in 1974. Since the mid 1990s a series of local government reorganisations has seen a reduction in the number of county councils as unitary authorities have been established in a number of areas. County councils are very large employers with a great variety of functions including education (schools and youth services), social services, highways, fire and rescue services, libraries, waste disposal, consumer services and town and country planning. Until the 1990s they also ran colleges of further education and the careers services. That decade also saw the privatisation of some traditional services, such as highway maintenance, cleaning and school meals.

The White Rabbit is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Alice encounters him again when he mistakes her for his housemaid Mary Ann and she becomes trapped in his house after growing too large. The Rabbit shows up again in the last few chapters, as a herald-like servant of the King and Queen of Hearts.

In his article "Alice on the Stage," Carroll wrote "And the White Rabbit, what of him? Was he framed on the "Alice" lines, or meant as a contrast? As a contrast, distinctly. For her 'youth,' 'audacity,' 'vigour,' and 'swift directness of purpose,' read 'elderly,' 'timid,' 'feeble,' and 'nervously shilly-shallying,' and you will get something of what I meant him to be. I think the White Rabbit should wear spectacles. I'm sure his voice should quaver, and his knees quiver, and his whole air suggest a total inability to say 'Boo' to a goose!"

Robert Dyer (6 March 1808 – 4 February 1887) left the village of Heytesbury, in the county of Wiltshire, England to voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to serve as a Newfoundland School Society teacher in the fishing community of Greenspond, Newfoundland. The Newfoundland School Society was established by the English merchant, Samuel Codner, who realized the need for educating the poor population of Newfoundland, and other poor colonies in British North America as well. Dyer arrived for his first time in Newfoundland, in 1839 and began his career as a teacher. Dyer stayed in Greenspond for twenty years, earning the respect and admiration of all the inhabitants and anyone who met or worked with him. Dyer was also ordained a Church of England Deacon in 1849; therefore, his work in Greenspond consisted of both teaching and ministerial duties. Dyer and his family later moved to Alberton, Prince Edward Island, where he was a minister in a Church of England Parish.

Robert Dyer was born on March 6, 1808 to Thomas and Sarah (Smith) Dyer, who lived in the county of Wiltshire, England. In 1837, records show that Dyer was listed as a shoemaker in the village of Heytesbury, just a few miles from Chitterne, also in the county of Wiltshire. Robert Dyer's great grandfather, Simon Dyer Senior, had also been a shoemaker in Heytesbury. On August 3, 1837, Dyer sent a letter of recommendation from the Vicarage in Chitterne, signed by a Reverend J. Leach Povey to the Newfoundland School Society wishing to serve as a teacher in Newfoundland.