Commons 1820-1832

Westbury, in the parish and hundred of the same name, was, according to William Cobbett†, a ‘miserable hole’, a ‘nasty odious rotten borough, a really rotten place’, whose cloth factories ‘seem to be ready to tumble down as well as many of the houses’.Cobbett’s Rural Rides ed. G.D.H. and M. Cole, ii. 400. The decline of its cloth industry, with the exception of one large concern, made the town ‘altogether insignificant’, and led to economic distress, unemployment and emigration. Pigot’s Commercial Dir.

Dismissed by William Cobbett† as ‘an ill-looking place enough’, Marlborough, a hundred in itself, was a small but reasonably prosperous market town in eastern Wiltshire.Cobbett’s Rural Rides ed. G.D.H. and M. Cole, i. 14; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1830), 805; PP (1831-2), xl. 111; (1835), xxiii. 222; VCH Wilts. xii.

Costly litigation after the general election of 1790 had ensured that the representation of the Norfolk assize town of Thetford, straddling the Suffolk border, was controlled by the two largest local landowners, the 4th duke of Grafton, who was also the recorder, and the Catholic 11th Baron Petre. By arrangement with the mayor, ten aldermen and 20 common councilmen of the corporation, dominated by the Best, Bidwell, Burrell and Faux families prominent in the town’s brewing, coal, iron, paper and wool trades, they nominated a Member each.

Dorset, a predominantly rural county, had long been politically moribund, but it was notable for staging, during the reform crisis of 1831, one of the most nationally significant by-elections in this period. Administratively, it was split into nine divisions, while Poole, the most prosperous borough, was technically a county in its own right, although its freeholders were allowed to vote in county elections.

Maidstone, a large and venal borough, was one of the most highly politicized constituencies in Britain: it had witnessed contests at every general election (and all but one by-election) since 1715, resulting in a plethora of printed pollbooks.Peep at the Commons (1820), 11; HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii.

Haddingtonshire was in the process of becoming one of the richest grain producing areas of Scotland, with numerous landlords keen to implement advanced farming techniques. It had a number of farmers’ clubs. Sheep were reared on the pastures of the Lammermuir hills, and there was some small-scale textile manufacturing. The royal burghs were Haddington, Dunbar and North Berwick. The other principal settlements were Cockenzie, East Linton, Prestonpans and Tranent.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), ii.

Aylesbury, the county town, was a market centre in the Vale of Aylesbury, whose once flourishing lace manufacture had ‘fallen into decay’ by the end of this period. An unincorporated borough, its local government was in the hands of the vestry and four constables, chosen at the court leet of the lords of the manor, the 1st (d. 1813) and 2nd marquesses of Buckingham, heads of the Grenville family of Stowe, in the north-west of the county, and Wotton Underwood, six miles west of Aylesbury. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 148; (1830), 71-72; R.W.

Aldborough, an insignificant village situated on the River Wharf, and the market town of Boroughbridge, two miles to the west on the River Ure, lay on the border between the North and West Ridings of the county, some 15 miles south-west of York. Boroughbridge was described in 1828 as ‘a place of no importance as to trade or manufacturers’, whose ‘chief consequence ... derived from its thoroughfare situation ... on the great north road’. Pigot’s National Dir.

Among the boroughs, the City of London, the financial and commercial centre of the kingdom, was second only to neighbouring Westminster in the size of its electorate, which consisted of freemen (resident and non-resident) attached to the livery companies. They were predominantly smaller merchants, shopkeepers and artisans. Had the franchise been in the freemen at large the electorate would have been probably ten times greater; and a householder qualification would have quadrupled it.HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 264; Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), iv.

Bedfordshire was a chiefly agricultural county, with centres of lace, straw and thread manufacture in Bedford, Dunstable, Luton and Market Street.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 111-22. County politics were notable for their marked party divisions, which originated in the contests of 1774 and 1784 and were sustained throughout this period.F.