County

Merioneth (Meirionydd) was a rugged county on Cardigan Bay, where slate quarrying, lead mining and the manufacture of woollen goods were locally important. The Mawddach estuary formed a natural north-south barrier within the county and the River Dee flowed north-eastwards towards Chester from Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) in the north-east. Administratively, Merioneth comprised five hundreds: Ardudwy; Edeirnion; Estumaner (Ystumanner); Penllyn, and Talybont and Mawddwy. Bala and Dolgellau shared the assizes and the other market towns were Barmouth (Y Bermo), Corwen and Towyn.Parl.

Banffshire’s agriculture was dominated by sheep and cattle rearing, and oats was the chief arable crop. Fishing, whisky distilling and some small-scale textile manufacturing were other sources of employment. Its royal burghs were the coastal towns of Banff and Cullen. The other significant settlements were Aberchider, Dufftown and Keith and the small ports of Buckie, Macduff and Portsoy.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), i.

Kincardineshire (sometimes known as ‘The Mearns’) contained the eastern extremity of the Grampians and much fertile agricultural land, whose cultivation had benefited greatly from the improving Norfolk-model techniques pioneered by Robert Barclay Allardice of Urie (1732-97), Member for the county, 1788-97, and made rapid strides in the early nineteenth century. There was no significant industry, but fishing sustained the coastal communities. The only royal burgh was Inverbervie, on the coast.

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.

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.

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.

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.