County

Leicestershire’s agriculture was dominated by corn and sheep production. As well as the thriving and expanding county town, where about 15 per cent of the freeholders lived, it contained a number of considerable settlements, some of which were centres of hosiery, cotton and worsted manufacturing, still largely conducted on a domestic basis: Loughborough (population in 1821 7,365); Hinckley (5,933); Ashby-de-la-Zouch (3,935); Melton Mowbray (2,815); Lutterworth (2,102); Market Harborough (1,873), and Market Bosworth (1,117).

Cambridgeshire was a variedly productive agricultural county, with no significant manufacturing industry. In 1824, the 5th Earl De La Warr, writing to the 3rd earl of Hardwicke, the lord lieutenant, wondered whether there was any point in backing a scheme to establish a horticultural society, as ‘our county is too thinly peopled with resident families to give such an institution any chance of success’.Add. 35691, f.

A county palatine of four wards or deaneries (Chester, Darlington, Easington and Stockton) Durham was agriculturally diverse and had rich deposits of coal, iron and lead. Despite their repeated requests to be transferred to Northumberland, the detached rural districts of Bedlingtonshire, Islandshire and Norhamshire, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed, remained part of the representative county of Durham until 1832 and of the administrative county until 1834. The only parliamentary borough, the city of Durham, was the assize and election town.

Carmarthenshire was comprised of eight hundreds (Carnwallon, Carthinog, Cayo, Derllys, Elvet, Iskennen, Kidwelly and Perfedd) and the chief towns were the county town and borough of Carmarthen, Llandovery, Kidwelly, Llandeilo, Llanelli, Llandybie, Newcastle Emlyn and St. Clears. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 379. Areas rich in coal, iron and lead had undergone substantial industrialization in the eighteenth century, but by 1830 the population in many districts was in decline. L.J.

The Border county of Dumfriesshire was mostly given over to arable agriculture, but it had significant coal and mineral deposits and there was extensive and varied textile manufacturing. In addition to the royal burghs of Dumfries, Annan, Lochmaben and Sanquhar, the principal settlements were Ecclefechan, Langholm, Lockerbie, Moffat, Moniave and Thornhill.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 397-400. The most powerful interest was that of the dukes of Buccleuch of Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill.

The county town and Tayside port of Perth, whose population (burgh only) rose from 19,068 in 1821 to 20,016 in 1831, served an important agricultural and textile manufacturing district and was known for its salmon fishing, distilleries, ginghams, shawls and muslins. The council of 26 was dominated by its 14 guildry men, whose collective votes under the so-called ‘beautiful order’ required them to comply with the wishes of their majority, so giving them an automatic majority over the 12 trades councillors.

Between 1754 and 1805 Hertfordshire, a fecund agricultural county, experienced a period of electoral turbulence which made it the most frequently contested county in England: eight of the 11 elections which occurred between those years went to a poll, and there were five successive contests between 1784 and 1805. Thereafter the county was comparatively tranquil, and there were no further contested elections before the passage of the Reform Act.

Elginshire’s arable farming was progressive and it contained many whisky distilleries. Small-scale woollen manufacturing and herring and salmon fishing were its other staples. Its royal burghs were Elgin and Forres. The other principal settlements were Findhorn, Fochabers, Grantown and Rothes and the ports of Burghead, Hopeman and Lossiemouth.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 540-4. It had not gone to a poll since 1784.