The castellated Marcher and county town of Montgomery, strategically built overlooking the Severn Valley, lay 21 miles west of Shrewsbury, 23 north-west of Ludlow and 39 south-by-east of Machynlleth, with which it shared the assizes and right to hold county elections. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iii.
Andover was situated on one of the main westward coaching routes from London, and its trade in malt, hops and fine woollens had prospered with the opening of a canal link with Southampton. R. Mudie, Hants (1838), i. 165; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 307; J.
Denbigh (Dinbych) in the Vale of Clwyd, five miles south of the cathedral city of St. Asaph, was the old county town of Denbighshire, an agricultural centre whose principal trades were in shoe leather and books. Denbigh was the constituency’s polling town and its bailiffs were the returning officers and assessors. It had a recorder and corporation of 25, including two aldermen and two bailiffs, elected annually from among them. The freedom was conferred by gift of the corporation only and a Commons ruling of 7 Feb. 1744 confined it to residents. Parl.
The county town, seaport and borough of Cardigan (Aberteifi), the polling town for this constituency, was an administrative centre with a considerable coastal trade, built on the northern bank of the River Teifi which separated it from St. Dogmel’s in Pembrokeshire. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 371-2. Its corporation comprised a co-optive common council of 13 from among whom the burgesses elected a mayor (the returning officer) annually, and there was a town clerk, two bailiffs and an elected coroner.
Caernarvon (Caernarfon, Segontium) was a castellated borough, port and county town in the parish of Llanbeblig on the eastern side of the Menai Straits. It was the polling town and its annually elected bailiffs were the returning officers for Caernarvonshire’s second seat, a constituency of five boroughs where no uniform franchise qualification applied and the residence required of electors had not been fully determined. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 382-3; L. Lloyd Port of Caernarfon, 1793-1900, passim; P.D.G.
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.
The prosperous port, improving city and garrison town of Limerick, at the mouth of the Shannon estuary, formed a parliamentary county borough covering an extensive area both north and south of the river. The more outlying of its 21 parishes were thinly populated, and three-quarters of the inhabitants lived either in the dilapidated old centre, known as English Town (roughly equivalent to the Protestant parish of St. Mary), or in the more modern and increasingly vibrant commercial suburbs of Irish Town (of which the Catholic parish of St. John was the most politically active).
Lisburn, six miles south-west of Belfast on the north bank of the Lagan, was described by Henry David Inglis in 1834 as ‘a clean, neat and lively town, enjoying a good trade’, primarily in linens.Belfast Dir. (1819), 147-58; H.D. Inglis, Ireland in 1834, ii. 272; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 278. The borough, which was unincorporated, lay in the parish of Lisburn (or Blaris) and the seneschal of the manor of Killultagh served as its returning officer. By the Irish Act of 35 George III, c.
York, a cathedral city situated in a ‘rich and extensive valley’ on the River Ouse, at the junction of the three Yorkshire Ridings, was the capital of the North Riding and a county in its own right; the boundary extended beyond the city liberty to encompass an area some 30 miles in circumference, mainly to the south and west, which was known as the Ainsty. The city exuded an ‘air of great respectability’ and the streets were ‘embellished with many elegant public as well as private buildings’.
Ripon, a ‘very respectable and wealthy’ country town ‘celebrated for the manufacture of its sharp rowels’, remained a pocket borough until the Reform Act, providing a berth for some leading figures. Although it was governed by a self-elected corporation, which admitted resident and non-resident freemen, the parliamentary franchise had long been restricted to the occupiers of certain burgage properties, not exceeding 146 in number.
