Inverness-shire, the largest in Scotland, extended from the Moray Firth on the east coast to the Atlantic. It included Skye and over 40 other inhabited islands, notably Barra, Canna, Eigg, Harris, Muck, Rum and Uist. Besides its limited, backward and chiefly pastoral agriculture, its main sources of employment were distilling, fishing and kelp manufacture. New roads and the Caledonian Canal project (1822) began a slow process of improvement in this period. Inverness was the county’s only royal burgh.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), iv.

Forfarshire, which had last polled in 1782, was noted for its agriculture, fisheries and textiles, and its resistance to returning government candidates.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 18; M.

Fifeshire was noted for its agriculture, fisheries, coal deposits, hemp and linen trades. Census enumerators attributed its increase in population from 114,556 in 1821 to 128,859 in 1831, when 48 per cent of the 28,864 families were employed in trade and manufacture and 16 per cent in agriculture, to the jute and linen mills of Kirkcaldy and damask weaving in Dunfermline.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 18; Census Enumeration Abstract (1831), ii.

Edinburghshire contained much well-developed agricultural land, and there was no significant manufacturing outside Edinburgh, the only royal burgh, and the port of Leith.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 525-8. The Tory Dundases of Arniston, in alliance with the 3rd and 4th dukes of Buccleuch, had occupied one seat from 1774 until 1811, when the death of Henry Dundas†, 1st Viscount Melville, had removed his eldest son Robert, the sitting Member, to the Lords.

Caithness included the island of Stroma in the Pentland Firth and contained Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British mainland. Farming, fishing and stone quarrying were its staples. Wick, on the east coast, was a royal burgh and Thurso, on the north, was the only other considerable town. The principal villages were Berriedale, Castletown, Dunbeath, Halkirk, Keiss, Lybster and Sarclet.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), i.

Berwickshire, on the English border, was nominally divided into three districts: Lauderdale, Lammermuir and the Merse. Its principal town, Berwick-upon-Tweed, had been given to England in 1482 and returned two Members as a freeman borough. Elections there were habitually influenced, as sponsors, candidates and out-voters, by the gentry and freeholders of Berwickshire and neighbouring Northumberland and north Durham.W.G. Haddington, Jnl. through Counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Dumfries, Ayr, Lanark, East, West and Mid Lothians in 1817, p.

The county of King’s (later Offaly), of which almost a third was uncultivated, produced mainly wheat and potatoes and had a declining linen industry. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Banagher and Philipstown, the post towns of Clara, Parsonstown and Tullamore, the venue for county elections, and the parliamentary borough of Portarlington, which lay partly in Queen’s County. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Wicklow was ‘mountainous and rugged’ in the centre with a ‘rich and fertile perimeter’, so that it resembled ‘a frieze cloak with a lace border’.G. Wright, Guide to Co. Wicklow (1827), p. vii. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Blessington, Carysfort, Baltinglass and the port of Wicklow, the venue for county elections, and the post towns of Arklow, Bray, Carnew and Rathdrum.

Westmeath was predominantly arable, producing mainly oats and potatoes. There were several market towns, including Castle Pollard, Moate and Rathowen, the disfranchised boroughs of Fore, Kilbeggan and Mullingar, the venue for county elections, and the parliamentary borough of Athlone, which lay partly in Roscommon. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 695. The representation had long been dominated by the childless George Rochfort, 2nd earl of Belvidere, whose kinsman Gustavus Hume Rochfort had sat since 1798.

Dungarvan, a port at the head of a spacious bay on the south coast, had a ‘small export trade’ in butter and corn and a declining fishing industry, from which some 3,000 were ‘deprived of employment’ by the withdrawal of the Irish fishing bounties. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 577. A corporation of a sovereign, a recorder, and 12 brethren had been established by charter, 4 Jan. 1609, but ‘become extinct at a very remote period’, leaving the town to be governed by the seneschal of the manor.