A rare example of an open burgage borough, Chippenham finally lost its struggle for independence in this period and, on the eve of the Reform Act, fell under the control of a single proprietor. Sited on the Avon, in the parish and hundred of Chippenham, the town had a ‘neat and clean’ appearance, except for the shambles. There remained a few woollen, as well as small silk and cotton, manufactures, but the traditional cloth industry was greatly depressed.
Worcester, a cathedral city and county of itself, had ‘the largest hop market in the kingdom’ and was also noted for the ‘superior quality’ of its porcelain and fine china. It was as the ‘principal seat of the glove trade’, however, that the city employed the ‘greater proportion’ of its ‘capital and labour’.
Camelford, a small market town situated on the River Camel in the north-east of the county, was ‘a place of little trade’ and the houses were generally ‘rather poor’. Its immediate vicinity consisted of ‘good agricultural land’, but the country beyond was largely ‘bleak and dreary’ and included the ‘prolific’ Freburget lead mine, three miles away. S. Drew, Hist. Cornw. (1824), ii. 402-3; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 139; Parochial Hist. Cornw. i. 191-3. The borough comprised ‘about one-tenth’ of the parish of Lanteglos-by-Camelford.
Malton, a non-corporate town governed by a bailiff, who was appointed at the court leet of the lord of the manor, remained under the total control of the Whig 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam throughout this period. He never neglected to attend to the needs of its inhabitants, most of whom were his tenants, and after a challenge to his authority in 1807 there was no contest until 1874. The early days of January 1820 brought very severe weather, and the navigation of the Derwent, on which many of Malton’s residents relied for employment, became impossible, leaving many families destitute. On 10 Jan.
Newtown, a pocket borough abolished by the 1832 Reform Act, lay at the head of a fine natural harbour on the north-west coast of the Isle of Wight, but by the mid-sixteenth century had fallen into decay as a port and settlement. A salt manufactory and oyster fishery operated nearby, but an 1830 directory noted that the place itself ‘scarcely deserves the name of a village’. VCH Hants, v. 265; Pigot’s Commercial Dir.
Derby, ‘a medium town, between a manufacturing and a genteel one’, continued to prosper during this period, notably because of its iron, silk and porcelain production. As well as the Paving Act of 1825, improvements included such recent buildings as the gaol, although Colonel William Dyott in 1826 commented that it had ‘become a filthy, dirty place, particularly the new part’. R. Phillips, Personal Tour (1828), ii. 110-12, 155-6; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1829), 125; PP (1835), xxv. 445-6, 450-1; S. Glover, Hist., Gazetteer and Dir. Derbys.
The return of the Members for Peterborough had been under the complete control of the Whig 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam of nearby Milton, the principal property owner and custos rotulorum of the liberty, since 1786. The unusual jurisdiction enjoyed by the dean and chapter of the city’s cathedral over the soke of Peterborough and their power to nominate the returning officer (normally their steward) meant that their interest had always to be considered, but for many years they had been content to follow Fitzwilliam’s line.
Queenborough was a decayed market town of 270 acres on the Isle of Sheppey, off the north Kent coast. Its already much reduced defensive role was further undermined in this period by the rise of neighbouring Sheerness, where the royal dockyard was greatly expanded. The population was almost entirely dependent on local fisheries, but trade was not prosperous and about a quarter of the 200 houses in the town were unoccupied. PP (1831-2), xxxvii. 313; (1835), xxiv. 163; (1844), xxxi. 296-7; G. Bosworth, Kent, 6-7; VCH Kent, ii. 385-6; A. Daly, Hist.
Lying ‘in a low but pleasant situation’, on a fertile plain near the northern bank of the River Sow, Stafford enjoyed ‘fine romantic scenery’ and ‘highly salubrious’ air. The town produced hats and cutlery, but its traditional industry was leather, most notably the manufacture of shoes, which ‘at one time was so extensive that a single manufacturer has been able to give employment to 800 persons’, although this had recently ‘much declined’.
The county of the borough of Carmarthen (Caerfyrddyn) was a well-built county town, administrative centre and inland port situated on the north-west bank of the River Towy, nine miles directly north of Carmarthen Bay on the Bristol Channel and 17 miles west by road from Llanelli. Formerly the Roman capital of Wales and the seat of the South Wales princes, its boundaries were coextensive with those of the parish of St. Peter (5,155 acres), and until eclipsed by Swansea in the early nineteenth century it was the region’s largest town.
