Commons 1820-1832

Northamptonshire was predominantly rural and agrarian. Its chief industry was the manufacture of boots and shoes, centred around Northampton, Kettering, Daventry, Towcester, Higham Ferrers and Wellingborough, although there were also some small-scale silk weaving, lace making and wool spinning enterprises.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 608; Northants. Dir. (1847), 18; Hist. Gazetteer and Dir. of Northants. (1849), 161-3. Politically the county was notable for its unusually large number of resident aristocrats.

Aberdeen, situated on the Dee at its entrance to the North Sea, was a major fishing port and shipbuilding and industrial centre, where the large-scale manufacture of cotton, linen, sailcloth, woollens and hosiery was carried on. There were also extensive iron works and manufactories of rope, leather, paper, soap and candles. The royal burgh, or ‘New Town’, contained Marischall College (1593), while the ‘Old Town’, a separate burgh of barony, was the location of King’s College (1494). The population (burgh and parish) rose from 44,796 in 1821 to 58,019 in 1831.

Queenborough was a decayed market town of 270 acres on the Isle of Sheppey, off the north Kent coast. Its already much reduced defensive role was further undermined in this period by the rise of neighbouring Sheerness, where the royal dockyard was greatly expanded. The population was almost entirely dependent on local fisheries, but trade was not prosperous and about a quarter of the 200 houses in the town were unoccupied. PP (1831-2), xxxvii. 313; (1835), xxiv. 163; (1844), xxxi. 296-7; G. Bosworth, Kent, 6-7; VCH Kent, ii. 385-6; A. Daly, Hist.

Cullen was a small fishing port on the southern shore of the Moray Firth. In the early 1820s most of the decayed old town, which lay inland, was demolished to make way for improvements to Cullen House, the residence of the lunatic 5th earl of Seafield, who owned most of the local property. A more salubrious burgh was built on the coast, east of the ancient settlement of Fishertown. Its population (burgh and parish) was 1,452 in 1821 and 1,593 in 1831, and its council numbered 19.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 316, 317; PP (1823), xv. 7; (1831-2), xlii.

Argyllshire, the second largest county in Scotland, north-west of Glasgow, consisted of the mainland peninsulas of Cowal, Kintyre and Morven, and most of the islands of the Inner Hebrides, of which the chief were Coll, Colonsay, Islay, Jura, Mull, Rum and Tyree. Fishing, sheep rearing and kelp processing, which was under threat from imports of foreign barilla, were its staples; and there were numerous whisky distilleries on Islay and at Campbeltown, Kintyre.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), i.

Perthshire contained the dividing line between the Lowlands and the Highlands. It was predominantly agricultural, but had some modest textile manufacturing at various locations. The county town of Perth was a constituent burgh of the Perth district, while the other royal burgh, Culross, on the north bank of the Forth in a detached part of the county south of the Ochil Hills, belonged to the Stirling group.

Lying ‘in a low but pleasant situation’, on a fertile plain near the northern bank of the River Sow, Stafford enjoyed ‘fine romantic scenery’ and ‘highly salubrious’ air. The town produced hats and cutlery, but its traditional industry was leather, most notably the manufacture of shoes, which ‘at one time was so extensive that a single manufacturer has been able to give employment to 800 persons’, although this had recently ‘much declined’.

Dunbartonshire, bordered on the west and east by Lochs Long and Lomond respectively, comprised a ‘main body’ to the north-west of Glasgow and a ‘detached district’ to the north-east. The northern part of the main body was mountainous, but the remainder was a mixture of highland and lowland where there was much arable and livestock farming; a ‘great extension’ of sheep rearing occurred after 1800 to supply the Glasgow market. Whisky distilling and the salmon and herring fisheries were economically important.

Nairnshire was a small agricultural county (193 square miles).Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), v. 93-94. Its only significant settlement was Nairn, one of the Inverness district of burghs.

The county of the borough of Carmarthen (Caerfyrddyn) was a well-built county town, administrative centre and inland port situated on the north-west bank of the River Towy, nine miles directly north of Carmarthen Bay on the Bristol Channel and 17 miles west by road from Llanelli. Formerly the Roman capital of Wales and the seat of the South Wales princes, its boundaries were coextensive with those of the parish of St. Peter (5,155 acres), and until eclipsed by Swansea in the early nineteenth century it was the region’s largest town.