County

Carmarthenshire was comprised of eight hundreds (Carnwallon, Carthinog, Cayo, Derllys, Elvet, Iskennen, Kidwelly and Perfedd) and the chief towns were the county town and borough of Carmarthen, Llandovery, Kidwelly, Llandeilo, Llanelli, Llandybie, Newcastle Emlyn and St. Clears. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 379. Areas rich in coal, iron and lead had undergone substantial industrialization in the eighteenth century, but by 1830 the population in many districts was in decline. L.J.

The Border county of Dumfriesshire was mostly given over to arable agriculture, but it had significant coal and mineral deposits and there was extensive and varied textile manufacturing. In addition to the royal burghs of Dumfries, Annan, Lochmaben and Sanquhar, the principal settlements were Ecclefechan, Langholm, Lockerbie, Moffat, Moniave and Thornhill.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 397-400. The most powerful interest was that of the dukes of Buccleuch of Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill.

The county town and Tayside port of Perth, whose population (burgh only) rose from 19,068 in 1821 to 20,016 in 1831, served an important agricultural and textile manufacturing district and was known for its salmon fishing, distilleries, ginghams, shawls and muslins. The council of 26 was dominated by its 14 guildry men, whose collective votes under the so-called ‘beautiful order’ required them to comply with the wishes of their majority, so giving them an automatic majority over the 12 trades councillors.

Between 1754 and 1805 Hertfordshire, a fecund agricultural county, experienced a period of electoral turbulence which made it the most frequently contested county in England: eight of the 11 elections which occurred between those years went to a poll, and there were five successive contests between 1784 and 1805. Thereafter the county was comparatively tranquil, and there were no further contested elections before the passage of the Reform Act.

Elginshire’s arable farming was progressive and it contained many whisky distilleries. Small-scale woollen manufacturing and herring and salmon fishing were its other staples. Its royal burghs were Elgin and Forres. The other principal settlements were Findhorn, Fochabers, Grantown and Rothes and the ports of Burghead, Hopeman and Lossiemouth.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 540-4. It had not gone to a poll since 1784.

Berkshire was notable for its lack of large landowners, aristocratic or otherwise, and its great and increasing number of ‘small proprietors, or yeomen, who cultivate their own farms, consisting of forty, fifty, or eighty acres’. Sir John Walsh* of Warfield wrote in 1833 that ‘these small properties are constantly changing hands’ and ‘the generality of our neighbours will be people of moderate fortunes, and domestic habits, who are attracted by its vicinity to London, the goodness of the roads, and the prettiness of the country’. N. Gash, Politics in Age of Peel, 270-1; Add.

Linlithgowshire was the third smallest Scottish county in area (120 square miles). Its agriculture had flourished under improving techniques since the 1770s. There was small-scale coal mining at Bo’ness on the coast. Besides the royal burghs of Linlithgow and Queensferry, the other sizeable settlements were Bathgate and Broxburn.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), iv.

The ‘well-built’ county town and port of Dumfries, 92 miles south-east of Glasgow, was situated on the left bank of the River Nith, which separated it from Maxwelltown in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Its population (burgh only) rose from 5,255 in 1821 to 5,883 in 1831. Its council of 25, who received a charter of confirmation in 1827, comprised 18 merchant councillors and the representatives of seven incorporated trades, all generally resident in Dumfries or Maxwelltown, the customary venue for radical mass meetings refused by the provost and magistrates of Dumfries.