Hertford
Hertford, a prosperous market town and centre of the corn and malt trades, had a reputation in the early nineteenth century for electoral independence.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 354; Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), iv. 31. The corporation, which consisted of a mayor and nine aldermen, could make no more than three honorary freemen, and was therefore unable to impose itself on the inhabitants. The freedom was obtainable by purchase, apprenticeship or gift, and recipients were required to have been resident for 40 days before their admission.