Westminster, the most prestigious borough constituency in the United Kingdom, was, in the words of its most recent historians, ‘the hegemonic centre of political, professional, consumerist and cultural life’. Harvey, Green and Corfield, ‘Continuity, change and specialization within metropolitan London: the economy of Westminster, 1775-1820’, EcHR (ser. 2), lii (1999), 490. Its northern boundary was Oxford Street and its southern the Thames.
By convention, Members and candidates neither addressed nor canvassed the university, and indeed were forbidden to approach within ten miles of it during elections. Aspirants to what was regarded as a great honour were therefore dependent on the exertions of influential friends and supporters in the constituent 19 colleges and five halls. Once elected, Members could in normal circumstances count on retaining their seats for as long as they wished.
By the early nineteenth century the corporation of Devizes had established the practice of returning Tory, mostly local, landed gentlemen, who, by invitation, inheritance or purchase, had displaced the wealthy clothier representatives.HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 418; VCH Wilts. v. 227-9. Comprising the parishes of St. John the Baptist and St. Mary the Virgin, and (by convention) the area known as Old Park, the borough was the principal town in the county’s northern division. PP (1831-2), xl.
Peeblesshire was a small county with a population of 10,046 in 1821 and 10,600 in 1831; its principal burgh, Peebles, was about 20 miles south of Edinburgh. It was noted for corn and sheep farming and had some woollen manufacturing in Peebles, Innerleithen and Walkerburn.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), v. 256-91; Hist. Peebles ed. J.W. Buchan, i. 72-126, 217-24, 256-91. The dominant electoral interest in 1820 belonged to the ministerialist sitting Member, Sir James Montgomery of Stobbo Castle, who had sat unchallenged since 1800.
Selkirkshire was a small pastoral county of 390 square miles. Sheep rearing was highly developed and underpinned woollen manufacture in the villages and towns, of which only the royal burgh of Selkirk and Galashiels, both situated near the eastern border with Roxburghshire, were of any size.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), vi. 330-4. The dominant electoral influence belonged to the dukes of Buccleuch, who owned large tracts of the county and had a residence at Bowhill, near Selkirk. The Tory 4th duke died in 1819, leaving a 12-year-old son and successor.
Liskeard, a stannary and market town irregularly situated on ‘two rocky hills’ and in the valley dividing them in the south-east of the county, ranked ‘among the first towns’ in Cornwall. Its ‘principal business’ was connected with the tin, lead and copper mines in the neighbourhood, but serges and blankets were still manufactured ‘to a small extent’, there were ‘several tanneries and rope walks’ and the wool trade was ‘an improving branch’.
Wells, a cathedral city situated at the southern foot of the Mendips near the source of the River Ax, was described in 1830 as ‘small and compact, for the most part well built and the streets ... well paved’. Its prosperity depended heavily on the retail trade, which was sustained by ‘the respectable inhabitants and the rural population in the vicinity’. Little significant industrial activity remained, as silk manufacturing had entirely decayed and only one large stocking factory still operated; there were paper mills at nearby Wookey.
Fowey, a port and market town situated on the western bank of the river of that name, on the southern coast of the county midway between Plymouth and Falmouth, consisted essentially of ‘one street ... narrow and irregular’, which extended for ‘nearly a mile’ alongside the harbour. The mainstay of its economy had traditionally been the pilchard fishery, which was ‘still carried on to a considerable extent’ but was prone to fluctuations; in some seasons it ‘failed nearly altogether’.
Banbury, situated on the Cherwell in north Oxfordshire, close to the Northamptonshire border, was a thriving market town and centre of communications. By this period its only significant industry, the weaving of plush and horses’ harness and trappings, still largely a domestic concern, was in relative decline: in 1831, there were 125 plush and girth-weavers in the town, but in the surrounding villages about 550 men, plus women and children, produced goods for Banbury employers.PP (1835), xxiii. 151; VCH Oxon. x. 5, 12, 64-66; W. Potts, Hist.
Winchester, a ‘venerable and interesting’ cathedral city in the centre of Hampshire, stood ‘on the east declivity of a hill, gradually sloping to the River Itchen, navigable for barges’. Although it was the county town, it had been eclipsed by Southampton and Portsmouth in economic importance by the 1820s, when it was said to have ‘very little trade’. An attempt to establish a small silk manufacturing industry had apparently foundered by 1831. T.W. Wilks, Hist. Hants, i. 9; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 345; (1830), 477; PP (1831-2), xxxviii.
