Fifeshire was noted for its agriculture, fisheries, coal deposits, hemp and linen trades. Census enumerators attributed its increase in population from 114,556 in 1821 to 128,859 in 1831, when 48 per cent of the 28,864 families were employed in trade and manufacture and 16 per cent in agriculture, to the jute and linen mills of Kirkcaldy and damask weaving in Dunfermline.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 18; Census Enumeration Abstract (1831), ii.
Edinburghshire contained much well-developed agricultural land, and there was no significant manufacturing outside Edinburgh, the only royal burgh, and the port of Leith.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 525-8. The Tory Dundases of Arniston, in alliance with the 3rd and 4th dukes of Buccleuch, had occupied one seat from 1774 until 1811, when the death of Henry Dundas†, 1st Viscount Melville, had removed his eldest son Robert, the sitting Member, to the Lords.
Caithness included the island of Stroma in the Pentland Firth and contained Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British mainland. Farming, fishing and stone quarrying were its staples. Wick, on the east coast, was a royal burgh and Thurso, on the north, was the only other considerable town. The principal villages were Berriedale, Castletown, Dunbeath, Halkirk, Keiss, Lybster and Sarclet.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), i.
Berwickshire, on the English border, was nominally divided into three districts: Lauderdale, Lammermuir and the Merse. Its principal town, Berwick-upon-Tweed, had been given to England in 1482 and returned two Members as a freeman borough. Elections there were habitually influenced, as sponsors, candidates and out-voters, by the gentry and freeholders of Berwickshire and neighbouring Northumberland and north Durham.W.G. Haddington, Jnl. through Counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Dumfries, Ayr, Lanark, East, West and Mid Lothians in 1817, p.
The county of King’s (later Offaly), of which almost a third was uncultivated, produced mainly wheat and potatoes and had a declining linen industry. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Banagher and Philipstown, the post towns of Clara, Parsonstown and Tullamore, the venue for county elections, and the parliamentary borough of Portarlington, which lay partly in Queen’s County. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Wicklow was ‘mountainous and rugged’ in the centre with a ‘rich and fertile perimeter’, so that it resembled ‘a frieze cloak with a lace border’.G. Wright, Guide to Co. Wicklow (1827), p. vii. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Blessington, Carysfort, Baltinglass and the port of Wicklow, the venue for county elections, and the post towns of Arklow, Bray, Carnew and Rathdrum.
Westmeath was predominantly arable, producing mainly oats and potatoes. There were several market towns, including Castle Pollard, Moate and Rathowen, the disfranchised boroughs of Fore, Kilbeggan and Mullingar, the venue for county elections, and the parliamentary borough of Athlone, which lay partly in Roscommon. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 695. The representation had long been dominated by the childless George Rochfort, 2nd earl of Belvidere, whose kinsman Gustavus Hume Rochfort had sat since 1798.
Waterford, a mountainous shire and Ireland’s ‘chief dairy county’, had a thriving export market in agricultural produce and ‘fisheries of much value’, but other than a small cotton industry had ‘very inconsiderable’ manufactures. There were several market towns, including Dunmore, Tramore and the seaport of Passage East, the disfranchised boroughs of Lismore and Tallow, and the parliamentary seats of Dungarvan and Waterford, the venue for county elections. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Meath ‘exhibited a more marked disparity than could be found in any other part of Ireland’ between the ‘houses of its proprietors’ and ‘the cultivators of the soil’, whose tenements, although improving, ‘presented an appearance of great wretchedness’. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Athboy, Duleek, Kells, Navan and Trim, the venue for county elections, which a visitor described in 1827 as a ‘wretched capital’ with a ‘towering monument’ to the duke of Wellington, ‘in true Hibernian contrast with the filth and misery which surround it’.S.
Mayo, a predominantly Catholic county, produced mainly oats, potatoes and barley and had an ‘extensive’ manufactory of linens, based chiefly in ‘cabins of the poor ... furnished with a loom’. Its population of 293,112 in 1821 had grown to 367,956 by 1831, making it the third largest after Cork and Tipperary. There were several market towns, including Ballinrobe, Ballyclare, Foxford and Killala, and the disfranchised boroughs of Castlebar, the venue for county elections, and Westport, the ‘chief market’ for its linens. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
