The Earl of Surrey is a title in the Peerage of England, and has been created five times. It was first created for William de Warenne, a close companion of William the Conqueror. It is currently held as a subsidiary title by the Dukes of Norfolk.
The Earldom of Surrey was first created in 1088 for William de Warenne, as a reward for loyal service to William during the Conquest. He received the lordship of Reigate Castle in Surrey, but also had holdings in twelve other counties. Perhaps because he held little property in Surrey, the earldom came to be more commonly called of Warenne. The name Warenne comes from the name of their property in Normandy where the family's ancestral castle, Bellencombre, was located on the Varenne River. It was held by William de Warenne's son and grandson, both also named William, and then by the husbands of Isabella, daughter of the third William de Warenne. The first of these was William of Blois, son of King Stephen, and the second was Hamelin, half-brother of Henry II. The latter took the de Warenne surname, and a son, grandson, and great-great-grandson of Hamelin and Isabella subsequently held the earldom. With the failure of the second de Warenne male line in 1347, the earldom passed to Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, who was a nephew of the last de Warenne earl, although he did not assume the title until after the death of the previous earl's widow in 1351. It was also held by his son, who forfeited it upon his execution in 1397.
Surrey /ˈsʌri/ is a county in the south east of England, one of the home counties bordering Greater London. Surrey also borders Kent to the east, East Sussex to the south-east, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west and south-west and Berkshire to the north-west. The county town is Guildford.Surrey County Council sits extraterritorially at Kingston upon Thames, administered as part of Greater London since 1965.
The London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, and parts of Lewisham and Bromley were in Surrey until 1889. The boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames south of the River Thames were part of Surrey until 1965, when they too were absorbed into Greater London. In the same year, the county gained its first area north of the Thames, Spelthorne, from defunct Middlesex. As a result of this gain, modern Surrey also borders on the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon.
Today, administrative Surrey is divided into eleven districts: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley and Woking. Services such as roads, mineral extraction licensing, education, strategic waste and recycling infrastructure, birth marriage and death registration and social and children's services are administered by Surrey County Council.
Surrey was a provincial electoral district in the Canadian province of British Columbia from 1966 to 1983. The area it covered was formerly part of the electoral district of Delta. It returned one member to the Legislative Assembly of B.C. from 1966 to 1975 and two members thereafter.
For other historical and current ridings in Vancouver or the North Shore see Vancouver (electoral districts). For other Greater Vancouver area ridings please see New Westminster (electoral districts).
The riding was reconstituted into three ridings for the 1986 election: Surrey-Newton, Surrey-Guildford-Whalley and Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale. These were later reconstituted into the following ridings:
Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each.
The constituency of Surrey was one of them.
When it was created in England in 1979, it consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Chertsey and Walton, Dorking, Epsom and Ewell, Esher, Guildford, Reigate, Surrey North West, and Woking.
It was split in 1984, with the eastern half merging with London South as London South and Surrey East and the rest becoming Surrey West.
The constituency was re-created in 1994, consisting of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Chertsey and Walton, Esher, Guildford, Mole Valley, North West Surrey, Reigate, and Woking.