Northampton, one of the largest potwalloper boroughs, was ‘a flourishing town’ whose prosperity was on the increase. Ibid. (1835), xxv. 557. The opening of the branch canal in 1815, which linked the town with the main artery of the Grand Junction Canal four miles away at Blisworth, was the catalyst for its rapid expansion. The waterway gave Northampton’s traditional footwear manufacturers ready access to London, Birmingham and the fast developing industrial regions in the north.
Evesham, with the ‘exception of a ribbon manufactory in a declining state’, was a prosperous market town ‘most famed for the excellency’ of its vegetables and gardening.PP (1835), xxiii. 192; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1828-9), 865; Bentley’s Worcs. Dir. 14. Electoral corruption, asserted a petition presented by Lord John Russell, 17 Feb. 1831, ‘infected it like a leprosy’. C.R. Dod, Electoral Facts (1853), 113; CJ, lxxxvi.
Grampound, an insignificant village situated on the River Fal in the south of the county, 40 miles north-east of Penzance, was governed by a corporation, consisting of a mayor and eight aldermen, which, as the municipal corporations commissioners noted in 1833, ‘existed but for the purpose of enabling the freemen to derive a revenue from their votes’. The freemen, whose numbers were unlimited, were nominated by a jury of existing freemen empanelled by the corporation. D. and S. Lysons, Magna Britannia (1814), iii. 71;Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), iii.
When the municipal corporations commissioners took evidence in public at Cambridge in the autumn of 1833, The Times commented, 16 Nov:
Bramber, a ‘mean village’ situated about eight miles north-west of Brighton, consisted of two intersections of a street, the northern part of which adjoined the borough of Steyning. The boundary was wholly contained within but not entirely coextensive with the parish, covering some 20 acres of built-upon land and 825 acres of open land. It was reported in 1831 that there were 35 cottages, of which 29 were occupied; 12 of the total were actually situated ‘in the town and parish of Steyning’.
The Border town and county of Berwick-upon-Tweed, known for its salmon, smacks and agricultural produce, was an open and venal borough, which as ‘a town by itself’ had to be specifically mentioned in treaties and all national legislation. N. McCord, North East England, 33-34; Berwick in Parliament ed. Sir L. Airey, A. Beith, D. Brenchley, J. Marlow and T. Skelly, 24-25; Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i.
The dominant electoral interest at Woodstock, one of the smallest of the Oxfordshire market towns, was that of the Spencer Churchills, dukes of Marlborough, whose imposing residence at Blenheim Palace adjoined it. The original crown gift of Woodstock manor had included no borough property, but successive dukes, who were major benefactors to the town and employers of its inhabitants, had subsequently acquired substantial holdings within it. By the start of this period Woodstock, though neat and handsomely built, was in economic decline, with a falling population and soaring poor rates.
New Shoreham, a small port and market town situated on the River Adur, one mile from the English Channel coast, received a boost to its general foreign trade during the early nineteenth century from the rapid growth of nearby Brighton and Worthing. It was reported in 1823 that the ‘very safe and commodious harbour for shipping’ had recently been ‘improved at an immense expense’, and that ‘a new dry dock’ for the repair of vessels had ‘just been completed’. The market was ‘principally for corn’. Pigot’s Commercial Dir.
The parish, borough and market town of Preston, at the head of the Ribble estuary about 35 miles north-west of Manchester, was an important cotton spinning and manufacturing centre. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), iii. 649-50. Its representation had been contested four times, 1796-1818, and from 1800 was vested in a coalition formed by the Whig 12th earl of Derby and the Tory cotton manufacturer and corporator John Horrocks†.
William Cobbett†, who in March 1830 lectured at Eye, a market town affording employment in brewing, flaxwork, boot and stay making, thought it ‘a beautiful little place, though an exceedingly rotten borough’. Cobbett’s Rural Rides ed. G.D.H. and M. Cole, ii. 618; Eye Guide ed. L.J. Morley (1949), 16-18. In 1831 the boundary commissioners described it as a large and ‘irregularly built’ village, unpaved, unlit and unwatched with ‘neither trade nor manufacture’. PP (1831-2), xxxix.
