Commons 1820-1832

Great Marlow was ‘a respectable and well-built’ unincorporated borough on the southern border of Buckinghamshire, situated on the north bank of the Thames opposite the Berkshire parish of Bisham, which contained the Temple House home and copper mills of Owen Williams, Member since 1796 and possessor of the dominant electoral interest. There was some paper and lace making in the town. Municipal government was in the parish, which extended beyond the parliamentary borough; the two constables were the returning officers. Pigot’s Commercial Dir.

Newton was a small manufacturing town with one main street, five miles from Warrington and seven from Wigan. It had no corporation and was governed by the borough steward and the bailiff of the manor, who held a court baron and court leet three times a year and were the returning officers.E. Baines, Hist. Lancs.(1824), ii. 433; J.P. Earwacker, E. Cheshire, ii. 161-3; PP (1831-2), xxxvi.

The 1st marquess of Cholmondeley had abandoned his attempt to sell the Houghton estate by 1820, and the representation of the pocket borough of Castle Rising, three miles from King’s Lynn, remained exclusive to his sons and Fulke Howard, younger son of the 1st Baron Templemore, who was by marriage the manorial lord and largest burgage holder. Wellington mss WP1/634/10; Hickling’s Almanac (1880), 67, 72; Norf.

Grantham, a town with a ‘very neat and clean appearance’, lay on the Great North road, within easy reach of London.White, Lincs. Dir. (1826), 127. Some of the county’s leading families, the Cholmeleys of Easton, Thorolds of Syston Park and Welbys of Denton, as well as the 1st Earl Brownlow of Belton (lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire) lived in its immediate vicinity and took an active interest in its affairs.

Wenlock, a collection of scattered settlements seven miles north-west of Bridgnorth and ten miles south-east of Shrewsbury, was an ancient liberty, manor and parliamentary borough formerly dominated by St. Milburga’s priory. It extended over 71 square miles and comprised 17 parishes: Badger, Barrow, Beckbury, Benthall, Broseley, Deuxhill, Ditton Prior, Hughley, Linley, Madeley, Monkhopton, Shipton, Stoke Saint Milliborough, Wenlock Little, Wenlock Much, Willey, and Eaton (with extra-parochial Posenhall).

Rutland, the smallest English county, was entirely agrarian. It contained the small market towns of Oakham, the venue for elections, and Uppingham.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1822-3), 350, 351. Since 1747 the Noels, earls of Gainsborough, of Exton Park, near Oakham had combined with the Cecils, earls of Exeter, of Burghley House, just over the Lincolnshire border, to exclude from a share in the representation the Finches, earls of Winchilsea. The county had last been contested in 1761.

Honiton, a market town situated beside the River Otter, in the east of the county on the Exeter to London road, consisted ‘principally of one street, nearly a mile in length, containing many good houses’, which had mostly been built since the fires of 1747 and 1765. It had ‘long been celebrated’ as a centre for the manufacture of fine lace, which was also carried on in the surrounding villages, but though still quite prosperous and benefiting from royal patronage the industry had passed its peak and faced competition from the rise of factory-based production elsewhere.

Norfolk was an agriculturally diverse county remarkable for its large and independent yeoman squirearchy. Its principal ports were King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth and elections and county meetings were held in the city of Norwich.White, Norf. Dir.

Longford produced mainly oats, potatoes and butter and had ‘scarcely any manufactures’. There were ‘few resident noblemen or gentry of large estates’ and ‘few parts of Ireland in which persons of limited income’ could ‘live cheaper or better’. The principal market towns were Ballymahon, Colehill and Edgeworthstown, and the disfranchised boroughs of Granard, Lanesborough, St. Johnstown and Longford, the venue for county elections.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

The borough of Tralee, which extended into the neighbouring parish of Ratass, was a busy though backward market town and seaport, whose fortunes were limited by its shallow harbour. Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi.