County

Berkshire was notable for its lack of large landowners, aristocratic or otherwise, and its great and increasing number of ‘small proprietors, or yeomen, who cultivate their own farms, consisting of forty, fifty, or eighty acres’. Sir John Walsh* of Warfield wrote in 1833 that ‘these small properties are constantly changing hands’ and ‘the generality of our neighbours will be people of moderate fortunes, and domestic habits, who are attracted by its vicinity to London, the goodness of the roads, and the prettiness of the country’. N. Gash, Politics in Age of Peel, 270-1; Add.

Linlithgowshire was the third smallest Scottish county in area (120 square miles). Its agriculture had flourished under improving techniques since the 1770s. There was small-scale coal mining at Bo’ness on the coast. Besides the royal burghs of Linlithgow and Queensferry, the other sizeable settlements were Bathgate and Broxburn.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), iv.

The ‘well-built’ county town and port of Dumfries, 92 miles south-east of Glasgow, was situated on the left bank of the River Nith, which separated it from Maxwelltown in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Its population (burgh only) rose from 5,255 in 1821 to 5,883 in 1831. Its council of 25, who received a charter of confirmation in 1827, comprised 18 merchant councillors and the representatives of seven incorporated trades, all generally resident in Dumfries or Maxwelltown, the customary venue for radical mass meetings refused by the provost and magistrates of Dumfries.

Surrey, a mixed agricultural and commercial county which bordered on London to the north-east, was the fifth most populous English county, according to the 1831 census. Agricultural production in the southern and western areas was apparently ‘by no means of the first order’, but the farmers and market gardeners benefited from their close proximity to the London market. Census returns show that households engaged in trade outnumbered those dependent on agriculture by around three to one.

There had been five contests in Kent between 1790 and 1818, and, although no further elections were pushed to a poll before the passage of the Reform Act, it nevertheless experienced a high degree of political agitation over national issues, partly because of its proximity to the capital. F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, and Parties, 298. Predominantly agricultural in character, the county felt the full weight of the economic depressions of the early and late 1820s, and had a higher level of per capita expenditure on poor relief than its neighbours. D.A.

The largely Protestant county of Londonderry, which had about 200,000 inhabitants and was notable for its linen manufactures, derived its name from the English plantation of the early seventeenth century.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 291-7. The prefix London had then been added to the existing name in recognition of the dominance of the 12 livery companies who had divided the available lands between them.

Lancashire, whose industries and population continued to grow rapidly, was noted for its textiles, large unfranchised manufacturing towns, commerce and Fylde coast ‘granary’. Administratively it comprised six hundreds: Amoundness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale to the north, and West Derby and Salford to the south, where the great towns of Liverpool and Manchester lay and 74 per cent of the population of 1,335,600 resided in 1821. There were six represented boroughs and 21 market towns, most of which were industrializing rapidly.

Wigtown, the county town, situated on the eastern border, was described in 1831 as ‘a neat clean small town’, whose harbour did ‘not seem to have much trade’. It had a population (burgh and parish) of 2,042 in 1821 and 2,337 in 1831. Its council of 18 consisted of a provost, two bailies and 15 councillors.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), vi. 491; PP (1823), xv. 712; (1830-1), x. 152; (1831-2), xlii.

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.