County Limerick, a thriving area of pastoral farming and linen production, was so heavily populated by Catholics that Oldfield commented in 1816 that they, ‘in questions where their interest is concerned, must command the return of the Members’.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi. 239-40; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Kilkenny, a predominantly Catholic county, produced mainly wheat, oats and potatoes and had a declining wool and blanket industry. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Callan, Gowran, Innistiogue, Knocktopher and Thomastown, the parliamentary borough of Kilkenny city, the venue for county elections, and Castlecomer, Durrow, and Graig.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
The large county of Kerry, with its famously rugged and beautiful coastline, was home to a sizeable Catholic population, but, as was reported by the Dublin barrister Arthur Chichester Macartney to the Irish lord chancellor in 1822, the inhabitants were ‘wretchedly poor, and in civilization and improvement 150 years behind the northerns’.Add. 37298, f. 320; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Cavan, the southernmost county of the old province of Ulster, was a bleak inland region of limited agricultural and commercial development, but it was populous and contained the disfranchised boroughs of Belturbet and Cavan, where county meetings and elections were held. The Catholic population greatly outnumbered, yet were electorally in thrall to, the almost exclusively Protestant gentry, of whom none individually had a sufficient interest to return a Member.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi. 221; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 314-18; Hist.
Seven-eighths of Suffolk’s land were given over to arable farming, and the maltings at Ipswich, Lowestoft, Woodbridge, Beccles and Snape were major suppliers of the London breweries. The woollen trade was in terminal decline (manufacturing ceased by 1840), but silk and worsted production continued at Glemsford, Haverhill, Mildenhall and Sudbury.
A Lakeland county separated from Scotland by the Solway Firth, Cumberland was noted for having numerous small farmers (statesmen) and few great landowners, its corn, lead and hand-woven cottons, and its coal trade with Ireland. Administratively it was divided into five wards (Cumberland, Eskdale, Leath, Allerdale below and Allerdale above Derwent). The city and county of Carlisle, the county town, shared the assizes with the county’s second parliamentary borough, Cockermouth, which was the usual venue for elections.
A mountainous Lakeland county, Westmorland comprised four wards: Kendal, Lonsdale, East and West - the first two derived from the barony of Westmorland, the last two from that of Appleby. The county and assize town of Appleby, Westmorland’s only parliamentary borough, had been eclipsed in size and local importance by the textile and shoe manufacturing town of Kendal on the River Kent, where enclosure and canal building to improve communications with Lancaster and Preston were in progress and legislation for an improved road network sought.Parl.
Tipperary, noted for its ‘depressed and turbulent peasantry’, had an ‘extensive’ export trade in agricultural produce, particularly butter and other dairy products, but apart from one cotton factory was ‘wholly devoid of manufactures’. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised borough of Fethard, the parliamentary seats of Cashel and Clonmel, the venue for county elections, and Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, Thurles and Tipperary. Dod’s Electoral Facts ed. H. J. Hanham, 313; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Buckinghamshire was predominantly agricultural, with an emphasis on dairy farming, but was noted for the manufacture of lace, straw plait (both declining in this period), paper and furniture. It contained six parliamentary boroughs and nine other market towns. A 50 per cent increase in population between 1801 and 1831 and the post-war slump created much distress at the lower end of the social scale. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 147; (1830), 69; PP (1833), xxxvi. 34-35; R.W.
Ross-shire, a large and sparsely populated Highland county, extended across the width of Scotland from its east coast, between Dornoch and Moray Firths, to the Atlantic in the west, between Loch Enard and Loch Alsh. The Outer Hebridean island of Lewis belonged to it. Only a small portion was under cultivation, but its eastern glens contained some fine agricultural land, which was exploited with improved techniques from the late eighteenth century. Whisky distilling and salmon and sea fishing were its other principal sources of employment.
