County

Kinross, on the western shore of Loch Leven, was the second smallest county in Scotland and united for judical purposes and as a sheriffdom with its neighbour Clackmannanshire. It had no royal burgh and Kinross and Milnathort were the only towns. It was affected between 1820 and 1832 by the enactment of the locally controversial 1827 and 1831 Leven (Fifeshire and Kinross) drainage bills and legislation for new roads and ferries linking North Queensferry with Perth and Dundee.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), iv. 409, 410; LJ, lix. 431 lxi. 451; lxiii.

Devon became increasingly dependent on agriculture, pastoral farming and fishing during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the industries for which it had previously been renowned went into terminal decline. In 1700 the manufacture of serges and other coarse woollen cloths had been widely distributed in the county and formed ‘the most important branch of England’s export trade in woollens’.

Wigtownshire was the western division of Galloway. It had several harbours, including Stranraer (on Loch Ryan in the north-west), Port Patrick (on the west coast) and Wigtown (on Wigtown Bay in the east). Stranraer and Wigtown were royal burghs, as was Whithorn; while Port Patrick was a burgh of barony, along with Glenluce and Newton Stewart.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), vi.

Stirlingshire comprised a ‘finely wooded [and] well cultivated’ lowland district in the east, which boasted ‘some of the finest land in Scotland’ for cereal crops, and a highland district in the west with ‘highly fertile loam’ on its lower slopes, suited for potatoes and turnips, and ‘some of the best grazing ground’ in the country. There were several whisky distilleries.