Leicester, the county town, was a centre of cotton and worsted stocking manufacture: in 1831 it contained about 7,000 knitting frames giving employment to some 1,200 persons, but the trade was in general decline in this period, which was marked by severe spells of distress among the framework knitters.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1822-3), 212-13; VCH Leics. iv.
After the turbulence, intrigue and corruption of the period 1784-1812 Seaford, an insignificant resort on the Sussex coast, 13 miles east of Brighton, was comparatively though not entirely tranquil.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1832-4), 1049. From 1812 at least one seat was under the control of Charles Rose Ellis, a wealthy Jamaican plantation owner and the close friend of George Canning. Ellis, who had sat for Seaford on the now defunct Pelham interest, 1796-1806, purchased assorted properties in the borough over a period of years. J.A.
Okehampton, a small market town situated in the valley of the River Oke, close to the northern edge of Dartmoor, had been a ‘great centre’ for the manufacture of serges and other coarse woollens, but this had declined by the 1790s. Many of the inhabitants were engaged in agriculture, particularly sheep farming, and the town’s economy was otherwise ‘dependent on its markets and fairs’.
The pocket borough of Heytesbury, in the parish and hundred of the same name, was, as William Cobbett† wrote in 1826, ‘formerly a considerable town’, but had become ‘a very miserable affair’, especially in comparison with its prosperous and unfranchised neighbour, Warminster.Cobbett’s Rural Rides ed. G.D.H. and M. Cole, i. 381, 388, 389, 391, 396; Devizes Gazette, 26 July 1821; Keenes’ Bath Jnl. 24 Oct. 1825; Pigot’s Commercial Dir.
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.
The May 1831 general election was called at very short notice, so few candidates had made preparations and some preferred to await the expected passing of the reform legislation before standing. Popular support for the reform bill was of such strength that opponents were swept away, in many cases withdrawing before the polls opened in the knowledge that they would be defeated. About a third of the 380 constituencies were contested.