Borough

<p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Economic and social profile</b>:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A market and county town situated on the east bank of the river Soar, Leicester was the ‘principal seat of worsted hose and fancy articles’, the production of which dominated its economy in the first half of the nineteenth century.<fn>W.

<p><b>Economic and social profile</b>:</p><p>A small and irregularly built town on the Dorset coast, with an artificial harbour or ‘Cobb’ that served as a port of refuge for boats escaping bad weather, Lyme Regis had become a well-established seaside resort by 1832. Difficult to access, owing to steep surrounding hills, its local economy was almost entirely centred around the accommodation of summer visitors in its many ‘well-furnished lodging houses’ and the servicing of seasonal homes for its fashionable élite.

<p>Hertford was well established before the Norman Conquest, and returned Members to at least 16 medieval Parliaments. However, the town fell into severe decline as a result of the Black Death, and the franchise was allowed to lapse after 1376. During the early sixteenth century the local economy began to recover, mainly because its markets were increasingly frequented by traders from London buying grain, malt, and other staples.<fn>E. de Villiers, ‘Parlty. Bors. Restored by the Commons 1621-41’, <em>EHR</em>, lxvii. 180; <em>VCH Herts</em>. iii.

<p><b>Economic and social profile</b>:</p><p>A port, commercial centre and seat of learning, Aberdeen was the largest city in north-eastern Scotland. A textile industry had developed in the late eighteenth century and employed around 14,000 in the 1840s.<fn>R. Perren, ‘The nineteenth-century economy’, in W. Hamish Fraser and C.H. Lee (eds.), <em>Aberdeen</em><em>, 1800-2000: a new history</em> (2000), 75-6.</fn> Shipbuilding and paper-making were also well established.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile:</strong></p><p>A small inland city and market-town in southern Tipperary, Cashel was the seat of an archbishopric and diocese. The town had no manufactures and little trade, with agriculture affording ‘very limited and uncertain’ employment to the working classes.<fn><em>Parliamentary Gazetteer </em>(1845, 1998 edn.) i (2). 346.</fn> It was described in 1834 as ‘rather pretty’ but far from flourishing.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile:</strong></p><p>Youghal was a post and market town, a sea-port, and ‘the practical capital’ of south-eastern Cork.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile</strong>:</p><p>Brighton, or Brighthelmstone as it was also known, was a fashionable coastal resort shaped by the social and architectural excesses of the ‘Prince of pleasure’ (later George IV) and his Royal Pavilion. A bathing place since the mid-eighteenth century, Brighton’s population was ‘chiefly engaged’ in serving its myriad visitors and catering for the ‘season’, which ran from October to March, when high-society descended on its regency villas in droves.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile</strong></p><p>Situated on a steep hill at the estuary of the Bandon river, Kinsale was a small ancient port and market town. Local merchants imported timber, coal, iron and salt and exported agricultural produce and, although having little industry, the port, ‘the most important fishing station in Ireland’, attracted boats from all parts of the United Kingdom and France.<fn>F. O’Sullivan, <em>The History of Kinsale</em> (1916), 166.