Sligo was ‘one of the most independent Protestant counties in Ireland’. Roscommon and Leitrim Gazette, 17 June 1826. It produced mainly potatoes and oats and had an ‘extensive’ but declining linen industry. There were several market towns, including Ballymote, Collooney, Coolaney, Dromore and the parliamentary borough of Sligo, the venue for county elections and an important fishery. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
Winchelsea, a decayed port, was in this period ‘a mere village’, situated on a hill a mile and a half inland from the east Sussex coast. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 523; VCH Suss. ix. 523. It was part of the electoral empire of the Whig 3rd earl of Darlington, who had bought control of both seats in 1804. Freemen were admitted purely with reference to the parliamentary interest and their number ‘kept as low as would secure the existence of the corporation’, which consisted nominally of a mayor and 12 jurats. Oldfield, Key (1820), 249-52; W. D.
Wexford had a thriving fishing industry and was heavily agricultural, producing mainly barley for export. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Bannow, Clonmines, Enniscorthy, Fethard, Gorey, and Taghmon, the parliamentary boroughs of New Ross and Wexford, the venue for the county elections, and Newtownbarry.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.
I’ll sing you a song of a comical town
Though its boundary’s small yet great its renown.
For eating and drinking and voting well fam’d
And the place from its bridges has Stockbridge been named. Bodl. Clarendon dep. c.369, bdle. 5.
Trinity College, which was established by Elizabeth I in 1592 and enfranchised by James I in 1613, was the alma mater of the Protestant Ascendancy, its spiritual bedrock and political forcing ground.This and the following paragraph are based on R.B. McDowell and D.A. Webb, Trinity Coll.
Bridgnorth, whose principal trades were in carpets, cloth, iron, malt and stockings, was a castellated market town bisected by the River Severn eight miles south of Wenlock. It was administratively distinct from the hundred of Stottesden and county of Shropshire within which it was situated. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i.
St. Mawes, a decayed port on the east coast of Falmouth Bay in the south-west of the county, had one main street of houses fronting the sea, on the north side of the harbour, which were mostly inhabited by fishermen engaged in the declining pilchard fishery. Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), iii. 231; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 166; S. Lewis, Topographical Dict. of England (1831), iii. 272. The borough comprised the manor of St. Mawes, which formed part of the parish of St. Just.
Hindon, which in 1820 was described by William Hazlitt as ‘a dreary spot’, was a chapelry of the parish of East Knoyle, in the hundred of Downton. An inconsiderable market town, it had lost most of its cloth industry by that time, but its inns still benefited from the considerable through traffic.Complete Works of Hazlitt ed. P.P. Howe, xviii. 368; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 801; VCH Wilts. iv. 178-9; xi. 98, 100, 102; N. Sheard, Short Hist.
Down, which was sometimes referred to as the ‘Yorkshire of Ireland’, had a population of over 350,000 in 1831 and was one of the wealthiest Irish counties. In addition to the disfranchised boroughs of Bangor, Hillsborough, Killyleagh and Newtownards, it contained several prosperous market towns and ports, including Newry and Downpatrick, where the county elections were held.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i.
Worcestershire was ‘extremely irregular’ in shape, ‘having upon every side small portions detached and insulated by the adjoining counties’. PP (1831-2), xxxvi. 309; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1822-3), 568. Its agriculture, which suffered periodically from distress, provided a living for 14,954 (33 per cent) of the county’s 45,512 resident families, but 19,030 (42 per cent) depended on the trade, handicraft and manufacturing concerns of its larger unfranchised towns. PP (1833), xxxvii.
