Radnorshire, a small border county, had extensive crown wastes, few large estates and a history of treasury interference and strong party and dynastic rivalry at elections. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iv. 3; HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 510-11. Landowners frequently had property and interests elsewhere and were no more than occasional visitors to Radnorshire, which remained, unusually for Wales, a constituency open to relative newcomers.
Denbigh (Dinbych) in the Vale of Clwyd, five miles south of the cathedral city of St. Asaph, was the old county town of Denbighshire, an agricultural centre whose principal trades were in shoe leather and books. Denbigh was the constituency’s polling town and its bailiffs were the returning officers and assessors. It had a recorder and corporation of 25, including two aldermen and two bailiffs, elected annually from among them. The freedom was conferred by gift of the corporation only and a Commons ruling of 7 Feb. 1744 confined it to residents. Parl.
The coastal county of Denbighshire comprised the hundreds of Bromfield, Chirk, Isaled, Idsulas, Ruthin and Yale, and the chief towns and sources of most petitions were the boroughs of Denbigh and Ruthin and the market towns of Abergele, Chirk, Llangollen, Llanrwst (known for its flannel and slates), the lead mining centre of Ruabon, and Wrexham, an important centre of iron and coal production and the largest town in North Wales. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i.
The county town, seaport and borough of Cardigan (Aberteifi), the polling town for this constituency, was an administrative centre with a considerable coastal trade, built on the northern bank of the River Teifi which separated it from St. Dogmel’s in Pembrokeshire. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 371-2. Its corporation comprised a co-optive common council of 13 from among whom the burgesses elected a mayor (the returning officer) annually, and there was a town clerk, two bailiffs and an elected coroner.
Cardiganshire comprised the hundreds of Genau’r Glyn, Ilar, Moyddyn, Pennardd and Troedyraur, and the chief towns were the boroughs of Aberystwyth, Adpar (Atpar), Cardigan (Aberteifi), Lampeter (Llanbedr-Pont-Steffan), Tregaron, and the centrally situated new town and harbour of Aberaeron, developed under an 1807 Act by the Rev. Alban Thomas Jones Gwynne of Mynachdy. Nominally two-thirds of the county was crown land.
Caernarvon (Caernarfon, Segontium) was a castellated borough, port and county town in the parish of Llanbeblig on the eastern side of the Menai Straits. It was the polling town and its annually elected bailiffs were the returning officers for Caernarvonshire’s second seat, a constituency of five boroughs where no uniform franchise qualification applied and the residence required of electors had not been fully determined. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 382-3; L. Lloyd Port of Caernarfon, 1793-1900, passim; P.D.G.
Breconshire was a mountainous border county of isolated farmsteads and villages into which the unfranchised iron town of Merthyr Tydfil extended at Cefn-Coed-y-Cymer. Administratively it comprised six hundreds: Builth, Crickhowell, Defynnog, Merthyr, Pencelli and Talgarth, and its market towns were Brecon, Builth, Crickhowell and Hay.Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 260, 261. The representation was controlled by the largest landowners, who were absentees and Tory in sympathy.
Anglesey was divided for administrative purposes into six deaneries or hundreds: Llifon, Malltraeth, Menai, Talybolion, Twrcelyn and Tyndaethwy. The chief settlements were the county town and borough of Beaumaris; Aberffraw, the former seat of the Welsh princes; Amlwch in the north-east near the Parys Mountain copper mine; Holyhead (Caergybi) in the north-west, where the harbour served the packet ships of the royal Irish mail to Dublin, and the small market towns of Llanagefni, Llanerchymedd and Newborough. Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dict.
Renfrewshire was geographically small but populous and highly industrialized, being ‘intimately connected’ with neighbouring Lanarkshire. Textile production was carried on at Renfrew, Johnstone, Pollokshaws and, above all, Paisley, one of the largest manufacturing towns in Scotland, where some 6-7,000 weavers were employed in 1818. Coal and ironstone were extensively mined in the heart of the county around Johnstone.
Inverness-shire, the largest in Scotland, extended from the Moray Firth on the east coast to the Atlantic. It included Skye and over 40 other inhabited islands, notably Barra, Canna, Eigg, Harris, Muck, Rum and Uist. Besides its limited, backward and chiefly pastoral agriculture, its main sources of employment were distilling, fishing and kelp manufacture. New roads and the Caledonian Canal project (1822) began a slow process of improvement in this period. Inverness was the county’s only royal burgh.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), iv.
