Penryn, a port and market town in the south-west of the county, was situated on the ‘declivity of a low hill, projecting ... into one of the creeks of Falmouth harbour’, where there was ample space for a quay and ‘wharves of every description’. Its principal trade was in granite, quarried from the surrounding hills and shipped in ‘vast quantities’ to London and elsewhere for public works such as the new Waterloo Bridge.
Truro, a port and market town, was situated almost in the centre of the county, in a valley at the confluence of two rivers which formed a large navigable creek, ‘one of the numerous branches of Falmouth harbour’; there were ‘several quays and wharves on its margin’. The town was ‘increasing rapidly in wealth and population’ in this period and had strong claims to be regarded as ‘the metropolis’ of Cornwall. Its prosperity was derived chiefly from the extensive mining operations in the neighbourhood.
Portsmouth was styled the ‘key of England’ in a contemporary gazetteer, while Henry Alford, the future dean of Canterbury, referred to the port in 1829 as ‘the rendezvous of British naval preparation and strength’. He added:
The borough of Corfe Castle lay in the parish of the same name, in the centre of the Isle of Purbeck, and four miles from Wareham. Although Purbeck, with its stone quarries and clay pits, was reasonably prosperous, the town of Corfe Castle consisted only of ‘a few thatched cottages’ and was ‘poor and of forlorn appearance’.
Totnes, a market town situated on the western bank of the navigable River Dart, midway between Plymouth and Exeter, lay at the heart of a ‘rich agricultural district’ known as the South Hams. It consisted principally of ‘one good street nearly three-quarters of a mile in length’, which led to the river where a bridge, rebuilt in 1828, connected the town to the ‘handsome eastern suburb’ of Bridgetown, in the neighbouring parish of Berry Pomeroy.
Wilton, ‘pleasantly situated in the widest part of the vale of the Wiley’, was only nominally the county town of Wiltshire, having become ‘a small, decayed place’.Sir R.C. Hoare, Wilts. Branch and Dole, 55; Spectator, 1 Jan. 1831. Its cloth production and even its famed carpet manufactures, whose ‘brilliancy of colour, variety of pattern and boldness of design are equalled by few and exceeded by none’, had substantially declined. The Times, 16 May 1823; Wilts. RO, Pembroke mss 2057/F4/24, pp. 86, 89, 90, 93; Pigot’s Commercial Dir.
Taunton, ‘a populous and respectable market town’, situated on the River Tone in a ‘fertile and salubrious valley’, was ‘one of the principal towns’ in the county. Largely through the efforts of the Market House Society, which had obtained private Acts of Parliament in 1768 and 1817, the central streets were ‘spacious, well-paved, and lighted with gas’, giving a general appearance of prosperity, and the town had attracted a number of ‘genteel families’ of independent fortune.
Hedon, the market town for Holderness, lay eight miles east of Hull and very much in its shadow. It consisted chiefly of one street and was described in 1833 as ‘very mean’, with ‘very little appearance of trade or business’.E. Baines, Hist. Yorks. (1823), ii. 214-16; PP (1835), xxv. 1541. The corporation comprised a mayor, nine other aldermen and two bailiffs. The parliamentary franchise was in the freemen, who qualified by birth or apprenticeship.
Addressing the electors in 1826, Abel Rous Dottin recalled his first visit to Southampton some 30 years earlier, when
it was, compared with its present appearance, little better than a village. Now, it was one of the most elegant towns in England; its commerce had improved; it was brilliantly lit with gas ... Majestic steam vessels were seen floating on their beautiful river, magnificent baths were erecting [and] rows of elegant buildings were rising round the town and its vicinity. Southampton Herald, 12 June 1826.
Tamworth, which lay partly in Staffordshire and partly in Warwickshire, had ‘extensive wharfs and warehouses on the canal’, two large wool stapling establishments and numerous corn and cotton mills, including that of the Peel family on the River Tame. PP (1831-2), xl. 13; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1828-9), 736; Staffs. Dir.
