Essex was a rich agricultural and maritime county, with only one substantial urban centre, Colchester, whose population of 14,000 rising to 16,000 was almost three times that of the county town, Chelmsford. The once thriving woollen industry was virtually extinct by 1820, but this period saw a considerable growth in silk weaving as flourishing London manufacturers set up mills in most of the larger Essex towns. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 282; VCH Essex, ii.
The borough of Corfe Castle lay in the parish of the same name, in the centre of the Isle of Purbeck, and four miles from Wareham. Although Purbeck, with its stone quarries and clay pits, was reasonably prosperous, the town of Corfe Castle consisted only of ‘a few thatched cottages’ and was ‘poor and of forlorn appearance’.
The Orkneys, a group of almost 70 islands and islets, lay about eight miles off the eastern end of the northern coast of the Scottish mainland, separated from Caithness by the Pentland Firth. There were three main groups of islands: the South Isles, which included Hoy and South Ronaldsay; Pomona, or the Mainland, on which was situated the capital Kirkwall, a royal burgh; and the North Isles of Shapinsay, Eday, Stronsay, Sandray, Westray and North Ronaldsay, among others. Stromness, which was also on the Mainland, was a burgh of barony.
The East Fife Burghs (as they were usually called) were small fishing settlements strung over a distance of about six miles along the northern shore of the Firth of Forth at its widest point, in the East Neuk of Fife. Pittenweem, the most westerly, contained some ‘good houses’ in 1831, when its population was 1,317. It had a council of 24, who were nearly all residents. Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), v. 207-9; PP (1823), xv. 702; (1831-2), xlii. 75; (1836), xxiii.
Totnes, a market town situated on the western bank of the navigable River Dart, midway between Plymouth and Exeter, lay at the heart of a ‘rich agricultural district’ known as the South Hams. It consisted principally of ‘one good street nearly three-quarters of a mile in length’, which led to the river where a bridge, rebuilt in 1828, connected the town to the ‘handsome eastern suburb’ of Bridgetown, in the neighbouring parish of Berry Pomeroy.
Wilton, ‘pleasantly situated in the widest part of the vale of the Wiley’, was only nominally the county town of Wiltshire, having become ‘a small, decayed place’.Sir R.C. Hoare, Wilts. Branch and Dole, 55; Spectator, 1 Jan. 1831. Its cloth production and even its famed carpet manufactures, whose ‘brilliancy of colour, variety of pattern and boldness of design are equalled by few and exceeded by none’, had substantially declined. The Times, 16 May 1823; Wilts. RO, Pembroke mss 2057/F4/24, pp. 86, 89, 90, 93; Pigot’s Commercial Dir.
Taunton, ‘a populous and respectable market town’, situated on the River Tone in a ‘fertile and salubrious valley’, was ‘one of the principal towns’ in the county. Largely through the efforts of the Market House Society, which had obtained private Acts of Parliament in 1768 and 1817, the central streets were ‘spacious, well-paved, and lighted with gas’, giving a general appearance of prosperity, and the town had attracted a number of ‘genteel families’ of independent fortune.
Hedon, the market town for Holderness, lay eight miles east of Hull and very much in its shadow. It consisted chiefly of one street and was described in 1833 as ‘very mean’, with ‘very little appearance of trade or business’.E. Baines, Hist. Yorks. (1823), ii. 214-16; PP (1835), xxv. 1541. The corporation comprised a mayor, nine other aldermen and two bailiffs. The parliamentary franchise was in the freemen, who qualified by birth or apprenticeship.
Addressing the electors in 1826, Abel Rous Dottin recalled his first visit to Southampton some 30 years earlier, when
it was, compared with its present appearance, little better than a village. Now, it was one of the most elegant towns in England; its commerce had improved; it was brilliantly lit with gas ... Majestic steam vessels were seen floating on their beautiful river, magnificent baths were erecting [and] rows of elegant buildings were rising round the town and its vicinity. Southampton Herald, 12 June 1826.
Tamworth, which lay partly in Staffordshire and partly in Warwickshire, had ‘extensive wharfs and warehouses on the canal’, two large wool stapling establishments and numerous corn and cotton mills, including that of the Peel family on the River Tame. PP (1831-2), xl. 13; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1828-9), 736; Staffs. Dir.
