County

<p><b>Economic and social profile</b></p><p>Northamptonshire was a remarkably flat county (its highest point, at Daventry, was a mere 800 feet). Its predominantly agricultural economy benefitted from a climate free from extremes (owing to its distance from the sea and being surrounded by eight other counties) and a variety of soils.

<p><b>Economic and social profile</b>:</p><p>Aberdeenshire contained 1,260,800 acres, of which ‘two-thirds were uncultivated’.<fn><em>Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-53, impartially stated</em>, ed. H.J. Hanham (1978 edn.), 1-2.</fn> A contemporary observer remarked that the county ‘abounds in fine granite, has numerous sea-ports, and the most extensive woods in Great Britain’.<fn>Ibid.</fn> The county town, Aberdeen, was Scotland’s third most populous city and a commercial and manufacturing centre, particularly of linen.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile</strong>:</p><p>South Staffordshire was famous for ‘its numerous and valuable mines of coal and ironstone, and for the extent and variety of its manufactures in iron, steel and other metal’. However, it was also renowned for the ‘fertility and diversity of its soil, and the number and elegance of the seats of its nobility and gentry’.<fn>W.

<p><strong>Economic and social profile</strong>:</p><p>In 1853 North Staffordshire was described by Charles Dod as, with some exceptions, ‘sterile, cold, and dreary’.<fn>C. Dod, <em>Electoral facts, 1832-53, impartially stated</em>, ed. H.J. Hanham (1978 edn.), 291.</fn> This was largely due to the Moorlands, in the northernmost third of the county, which contained ‘large tracts of uncultivated land’.<fn>W.