<p>Bletchingley, a former market town overlooking the South Downs, 11 miles from Croydon, in the east of the county, owed ‘almost its entire consequence’ by this period to the fact that it returned Members to Parliament. The borough covered only a small area (about 50 acres) of the parish. It was reported in 1831 that there had been no contested election in living memory and that no records survived, but it was thought there were ‘about 70’ burgage properties, conferring the right to vote.

<p>New Romney was ‘an interesting, clean, and highly respectable ... town’, a mile inland from the west Kent coast, about ten miles east of Rye.<fn><em>Pigot’s Commercial Dir</em>. (1823-4), 410.</fn> Its harbour had long ago been swallowed by the encroaching sea, and it had no maritime trade.<fn> <em>PP</em> (1835), xxiii. 361.</fn> The borough remained, as it had been since 1761, under the control of the Dering family of Surrenden Dering, who owned estates at nearby Waldershare.

<p>Hastings, the premier Cinque Port, was situated in the Bourne valley on the east Sussex coast. A thriving and expanding town with a mild climate, it had ‘long been in high repute as a watering place’ and was frequented by ‘numerous and fashionable visitors’. Neighbouring St. Leonards, to the west, was founded in 1828 but not developed until after 1832. Fishing and shipbuilding were the staple industries, but the most lucrative activity was smuggling.<fn><em>Pigot’s Commercial Dir</em> (1823-4), 511; <em>VCH Suss</em>. ix.

<p>Newark was a thriving market town on the Trent, 18 miles north-east of Nottingham and close to the border with Lincolnshire. Its staple industries of brewing and malting were supplemented in this period by recently introduced cotton manufacturing.<fn><em>Pigot’s Commercial Dir</em>. (1822-3), 327; R. Vernon, <em>Newark before Victoria</em>, 42-45.<em> </em></fn> The corporation consisted of a mayor (the returning officer) and 12 other aldermen, chosen by themselves from the inhabitants; there were no freemen.

<p>A rare example of an open burgage borough, Chippenham finally lost its struggle for independence in this period and, on the eve of the Reform Act, fell under the control of a single proprietor. Sited on the Avon, in the parish and hundred of Chippenham, the town had a ‘neat and clean’ appearance, except for the shambles. There remained a few woollen, as well as small silk and cotton, manufactures, but the traditional cloth industry was greatly depressed.

<p>Worcester, a cathedral city and county of itself, had ‘the largest hop market in the kingdom’ and was also noted for the ‘superior quality’ of its porcelain and fine china. It was as the ‘principal seat of the glove trade’, however, that the city employed the ‘greater proportion’ of its ‘capital and labour’.

<p>Nottinghamshire, a county ‘rich in produce and manufactures’, was the centre of the Dukeries, the ‘immense domains of the ducal houses’, and, according to the local reformer Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield, the representation was ‘entirely under the influence of the nobility’.<fn> Oldfield, <em>Rep. Hist</em>. (1816), iv. 315-17; Hatherton diary, 3 Nov. 1821; <em>Pigot’s Commercial Dir</em>.

<p>The small county of Cromartyshire (112 square miles) consisted principally of an ancient sheriffdom comprising Cromarty parish, most of Resolis and a portion of Mullbuie, situated in the northern extremity of the Black Isle between the Cromarty and Moray Firths. There were also eight detached districts amounting to 344 square miles.<fn><em>Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland</em> (1895), ii.

<p>A county palatine of seven hundreds, separated from North Wales by the River Dee and from Lancashire by the Mersey, Cheshire’s fertile plains were bounded to the south and east by Shropshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. It had industrialized early, and between 1821 and 1831 its population increased from 270,098 to 332,391.