County

The small county of Cromartyshire (112 square miles) consisted principally of an ancient sheriffdom comprising Cromarty parish, most of Resolis and a portion of Mullbuie, situated in the northern extremity of the Black Isle between the Cromarty and Moray Firths. There were also eight detached districts amounting to 344 square miles.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 310-11. The sitting Member in the 1818 Parliament had been Roderick Macleod of Cadboll, a Whig, whose Tory father Robert Bruce Aeneas Macleod had represented the county in the 1807 Parliament.

A county palatine of seven hundreds, separated from North Wales by the River Dee and from Lancashire by the Mersey, Cheshire’s fertile plains were bounded to the south and east by Shropshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. It had industrialized early, and between 1821 and 1831 its population increased from 270,098 to 332,391.

The industrializing county of Derbyshire, with its mixture of market towns and manufacturing concerns, was supposed to have over 3,000 (or, according to one source, 3,600) freeholders, but this figure was merely notional as there had been no contests since 1768. Politically, it was dominated by the Whig magnate the 6th duke of Devonshire of Chatsworth, the lord lieutenant, whose family had held one seat continuously from 1734.

Northamptonshire was predominantly rural and agrarian. Its chief industry was the manufacture of boots and shoes, centred around Northampton, Kettering, Daventry, Towcester, Higham Ferrers and Wellingborough, although there were also some small-scale silk weaving, lace making and wool spinning enterprises.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 608; Northants. Dir. (1847), 18; Hist. Gazetteer and Dir. of Northants. (1849), 161-3. Politically the county was notable for its unusually large number of resident aristocrats.

Cullen was a small fishing port on the southern shore of the Moray Firth. In the early 1820s most of the decayed old town, which lay inland, was demolished to make way for improvements to Cullen House, the residence of the lunatic 5th earl of Seafield, who owned most of the local property. A more salubrious burgh was built on the coast, east of the ancient settlement of Fishertown. Its population (burgh and parish) was 1,452 in 1821 and 1,593 in 1831, and its council numbered 19.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii. 316, 317; PP (1823), xv. 7; (1831-2), xlii.

Argyllshire, the second largest county in Scotland, north-west of Glasgow, consisted of the mainland peninsulas of Cowal, Kintyre and Morven, and most of the islands of the Inner Hebrides, of which the chief were Coll, Colonsay, Islay, Jura, Mull, Rum and Tyree. Fishing, sheep rearing and kelp processing, which was under threat from imports of foreign barilla, were its staples; and there were numerous whisky distilleries on Islay and at Campbeltown, Kintyre.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), i.

Perthshire contained the dividing line between the Lowlands and the Highlands. It was predominantly agricultural, but had some modest textile manufacturing at various locations. The county town of Perth was a constituent burgh of the Perth district, while the other royal burgh, Culross, on the north bank of the Forth in a detached part of the county south of the Ochil Hills, belonged to the Stirling group.

Dunbartonshire, bordered on the west and east by Lochs Long and Lomond respectively, comprised a ‘main body’ to the north-west of Glasgow and a ‘detached district’ to the north-east. The northern part of the main body was mountainous, but the remainder was a mixture of highland and lowland where there was much arable and livestock farming; a ‘great extension’ of sheep rearing occurred after 1800 to supply the Glasgow market. Whisky distilling and the salmon and herring fisheries were economically important.

Nairnshire was a small agricultural county (193 square miles).Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), v. 93-94. Its only significant settlement was Nairn, one of the Inverness district of burghs.

Warwickshire’s population increased by 23 per cent from 274,392 in 1821 to 336,610 in 1831, when almost 60 per cent of its 72,357 families were employed in trade, manufacture and handicraft, and 22 per cent in agriculture. Census Enumeration Abstract (1831), ii.