KENT, a maritime county in England, and, reckoning[7:12:694] its population, extent, and fertility, perhaps the first in the island. It is in a peninsular form, being bounded by the British Channel on the south; by the German Ocean on the east; by the river Thames, which divides it from Essex, on the north; and by the counties of Surrey and Sussex on the west. Its length is sixty-six, and its breadth thirty-six miles. The area is calculated at about 1300 square miles.

The divisions of Kent are into five laths, which are subdivided into sixty-three hundreds and fifteen liberties, and contain two cities, thirty-six towns, and 414 parishes.

The population, at the four decennial enumerations, amounted in 1801 to 307,624, in 1811 to 373,095, in 1821 to 426,016, and in 1831 to 479,155. At the last census the males were 234,572, and the females 244,583. These are comprehended in 97,142 families, of whom 31,667 are chiefly employedin agriculture, 29,419 are occupied in trade, manufactures, and handicraft, and 36,056 are not included in either of the other classes. The number of males above twenty years of age employed in retail trade or in handicraft, or masters or workmen, was 34,257.

The baptisms, burials, and marriages, show the following proportion at different periods, in the parish register :—

One Baptism One Burial One Marriage

in in in

1796 to 1800 30 41 116

1806 to 1810 29 38 115

1816 to 1820 31 51 130

1826 to 1830 34 49 143

Thus it is seen that the increase of population has been going on rather by a greater degree of longevity than by the increase of births. The only scale of morals which our present statistical knowledge supplies is that regarding chastity, by showing the proportion which the number of illegitimate children bears to the whole of the births. The illegitimates in Kent have only been one in twenty-four, whereas in the whole of England they were one in twenty; in the whole of Wales, one in thirteen; and in England and Wales taken together, one in nineteen.

The cities of Kent are two, and the towns whose houses and population exceed 3000 inhabitants, are—

Cities. inhabited. Inhabitants.

Canterbury 3033 13,649

Rochester 1088 9,891

Towns.

Greenwich 3665 24,553

Deptford 4386 19,795

Woolwich 2672 17,661

Chatham 2840 17,430

Maidstone 2844 1,538

Dover 2095 11,922

Tonbridge 1709 10,380

Margate 1808. 10,339

Lewisham 1716 9,659

Ramsgate 1354 7,985

Deal 1391 7,268

Minster in Shep-

pey, with Sheer- >- 1430 7,922

ness

Gravesend 756 5,097

Dartford 994 4,715

Sevenoaks 905 4,709

Milton 685 4,348

Bromley 669 4,002

Faversham 737 3,982

Cranbrooke 639 3,844

Folkstone 719 3,638

Bexley 601 3,206

Tenterden 548 3,177

Sandwich 595 3,136

By the law of 1832, entitled an act to amend the representation of the people of England, the county of Kent has been divided into the eastern and western parts. The election for the first of these is held at Canterbury, and the other polling places are Sittingbourne, Ashford, New Romney, and Ramsgate. The election for the second or western division is held at Maidstone, and the other polling places are Bromley, Gravesend, Tonbridge, and Cranbrooke. By the same act, the boroughs of New Romney and of Queenborough have been disfranchised; and the borough of Hythe, which before returned two members, can in future elect but one, and, to make up the competent constituency, the town of Folkstone has been added to it. Green wich has by the same law been erected into a borough, and returns two members; and Chatham is also a borough returning one. The other places, viz. Canterbury, Rochester, Dover, Maidstone, and Sandwich, return, as before, two members each. Thus the^ representation consists of four members for the county, and fourteen for the cities and towns.

The extent of land in the county appears to be 996,480 acres when the whole area is included; but, from some not ascertainable cause, the returns from the several parishes show only 972,240 acres. The annual value of the land, including that of the houses, was taken'in 1815, for the purpose of the property tax, at L.l,644,179. The whole of the poor-rates levied in 1833 amounted to L.450,851; and it had not much varied in the few preceding years.

The appearance of Kent is generally acknowledged to be equal, if not superior, in beauty, to that of any other British county. Its surface is gently undulating; none of its hills, except on the coast, rise abruptly, nor reach a great elevation. In all the valleys there are streams of water; the woods and trees enrich the scenery, and the mixture of pasture and corn land, interspersed with orchards, fruit-trees, and hop plantations, give to its beauties a character of softness and grace.

The Thames maybe considered as a Kentish river, as it washes its whole northern boundary, and empties itself into the sea on its shores. The river next in importance is the Medway, formed by the junction of four small streams, one only of which rises within the county. It becomes navigable for large barges at Tunbridge, and continues its course by Maidstone to Chatham, where ships of the largest size can approach the shore; and there terminates its course, by joining the Thames at the Nore, beyond the arsenal of Shcerness. The Greater Stoure, the Lesser Stoure, the Rother, the Cray, the Darent, and the Ravensbourne, are small rivers, none of them navigable, but all of great benefit, by the fertility they communicate to the meadow’s on their banks, and by the power they afford to the many mills erected upon their banks. .

Kent is almost exclusively an agricultural county; and though the soil is generally fertile,; and though there are few extensive tracts of barren or uncultivated land, yet no part of the kingdom exhibits within so small a compass so great a variety of soils, of productions, and of modes of cultivation. It has been judiciously divided into eight districts for the purposes of agricultural description. The first of these, the Isle of Thanet, is in the north-west angle of the county. The soil is a light mould on a chalky bottom, and has been highly enriched by the marine substances that have been administered as manure. The [7:12:695] whole island contains 23,000 acres of arable and 3500 acres of rich marsh land. The most common rotation of crops is fallow, sometimes with, sometimes without, a crop of peas: this is followed by barley, clover, and wheat; and on some soils rather heavier, the course pursued is beans, wheat, and barley. The barley of this district is very much esteemed, and sought for as seed in other countries. Besides the common grains, seeds of various kinds are raised for sale to the London seedsmen, particularly canary, radish, spinach, mustard, and onion seed. The soil in the marshy parts of the island is a mixture of clay, sea sand, and small shells, and yields most abundant pasture.

The upland farms of East Kent, which surround Canterbury, and extend to Dover on one side and Ashford and Rochester .on the other, are an open and dry tract of corn land, intermixed with woods. The soils are very various, all resting on a subsoil of chalk. Some of them are very heavy loamy clays, with a great quantity of flint stones on the surface: these are usually cultivated on a four-course rotation of fallow, barley, beans, and wheat; when the soil is somewhat stiffer, a variation occurs of fallow, wheat, beans, and oats. In this district the harvest usually commences from twelve to fourteen days later than in the Isle of Thanet. The woods in this district usually supply poles to the hop-planters in the vicinity; they arc cut down after from ten to fourteen years’ growth. There are in this division some few hop grounds, but they are confined to three or foür parishes. In the vicinity of Sandwich, Faversham, and Deal, a portion of land, of a rich sandy loam, receives an almost uniform cultivation; it is nearly all under the plough, and a four-course rotation is practised, of wheat, beans, barley, and oats, after a fallow, or sometimes canary occupies the place of wheat. Some portions of this land are alternately cropped with beans and wheat, or beans and canary. In the vicinity of Sandwich are many orchards, the apples of which are partly sent to London, and partly furnish return cargoes to the vessels that come laden with coals from Newcastle and Sunderland.

The district extending from Maidstone to Canterbury, and thence to Sandwich, is the great garden-tract for the growth of hops. The soils on which hops are produced are very various: the most productive are those which have a deep loam surface, with a subsoil of deep loamy brick earth; some of these have a considerable quantity of tìint- ∙stones mingled with the soil, and, when it becomes compact, almost covering it. Another soil, provincially called stone shaken, is very good for the growth of hops; it is mixed with many small portions of stone and sand, and rests upon the basis of the stone called Kentish rag, which is burned into excellent lime. The cultivation of hops is a very fluctuating pursuit, as the produce varies in different years from two to fifteen hundredweight per acre, and the prices have varied from three to fifteen pounds. The expense of cultivation is very great, from the quantity of manure that is required, from the great expense of the poles round which the plants twine, and the labour of keeping the ground clear and of picking the hops. Besides hops, the district is very productive of apples, cherries, and filberts, to the growth of which many fields, from one to ten acres in extent, are devoted: part of the apples are made into cider; the remainder, with the cherries and filberts, are principally conveyed to the different markets in London.

The Isle of Sheppey is separated from the rest of Kent by an arm of the sea called the Swale, which is navigable for ships of 200 tons burden. Its length is eleven, and its breadth eight miles. About four fifths of this island is either marsh or dry pasture-land; upon the former many oxen are fattened, and the latter is appropriated to the breeding and feeding of sheep. About 10,000 acres of this island is arable land, of great fertility, usually cultivated with beans and wheat in alternate years, with occasionally a fallow before the beans. This land is highly fertile, the wheat raised on it being considered as the best that is brought to London, a bushel frequently weighing sixty-four pounds. This great productiveness may be in some measure owing to the practice of applying to the natural heavy clayey soil a frequent dressing of the cockle shells which are washed on the beach by the sea. It is not unusual to apply thirty cart-loads of these shells to an acre of land. The uplands of West Kent are extensive and various in their soils. This part is more woody and enclosed than East Kent. The ridge of the chalk hills, about six or seven miles in breadth, consists of a stiff clay, with many surface flints, and requires six horses frequently to plough it. On these soils the most common rotation is a year’s clean fallow, then wheat, clover, wheat, and oats. Many large flocks of South Down sheep are kept on this hilly range. The valleys and the sides of the hills are lighter soil and easier to work, but do not produce better corn; some of this, but not to a great extent, is cultivated for hops.

The district known as the Weald of Kent was, in former times, an immense forest, desolate of inhabitants, and only occupied by wild swine and deer; and though it is now filled with towns and villages, and well peopled, the woods that remain are extensive; exhibiting some pleasing landscapes, where seats, farms, and villages, are mixed with cultivated fields, and woods of spreading oaks. The roads in this district are very bad, many of them impassable for carriages in the best seasons; and, in winter, horses can only travel by keeping on the narrow paved tracts that are formed by the sides of the highways. The soil is principally clay, with a substratum of marl, in some places very heavy, but in others sufficiently light to be ploughed with oxen. This district produces wheat, oats, barley, rye-grass, clover, and beans; but so various are the rotations, that it is scarcely possible to generalise them. The pastures are very rich and fertile, and fatten annually great numbers of cattle. In the western part of this district, and in the adjoining Weald of Sussex, there were formerly many ironworks: the ore is found, and the abundance of wood made the manufacturing of it profitable; but the substitution of coke for charcoal in making iron has put a final stop to all the iron-works of Kent and Sussex.

The last agricultural division is a rich, level, extensive tract of land, on the southern coast, containing about forty-five thousand acres of the richest pasture in the united kingdom. This level is protected from the violence of the sea, and from inundations, by a dyke of earth of very great thickness, called Dimchurch-wall. The whole is alluvial land, consisting of a fine, soft, rich loam, with portions of sea-sand and broken shells intermixed. The subsoil consists of alternate layers of sand and clay mixed with shells, amongst which are sometimes found large oak trees in various positions, the wood of which is as black and as hard as ebony. On this plain there are two towns, Romney and Lydd, but scarcely any villages, and few other houses than those of the shepherds and herdsmen who attend upon the numerous cattle that graze on the marshes.

As there are no other fences but dykes, or posts and rails, from the surrounding heights it has the appearance of one large verdant field covered with sheep and oxen. The breeding and fattening of sheep is the principal purpose to which this level is appropriated, and the number bred is greater than on any other tract of the same extent in the kingdom. The sheep take their denomination from the district; they are larger than the South Downs, but not of a size equal to the Lincolnshire sheep. Their flesh is highly esteemed in the London markets, and their wool is both fine and of a long fibre; the average weight of the fleeces being about five pounds.

The landed property of Kent is much divided; there are some noblemen that have large, but none such vast estates [7:12:696]as to give a preponderating political influence. The number of freeholders exceeds ten thousand, enjoying estates from the smallest value that can give a vote, and gradually rising to L.7000 or L.8000 per annum. The copy-hold tenures are very few, and the peculiar tenure of Kent, known as gavel-kind, is very much diminished by various legal operations.

The chief manufactures carried on in this county are those connected with the building and equipping of ships and boats. The males above twenty years of age employed in the several branches of ship-building, block, rope, and sail making, amount to 2120; to which are to be added, nearly as many plumbers, glaziers, painters, joiners, ironmongers, copper-smiths, and other trades who are occupied more in shipping than in other kinds of business. The larger operations of the kind are carried on in the king’s yards at Deptford and Woolwich; but there are many private yards for building and repairing ships on the south bank of the Thames. At Woolwich, the great manufactory of warlike stores, for the use of the artillery chiefly, gives occupation to many labourers exclusively of the soldiers. There mortars and brass cannon are cast, bored, and mounted, the different kinds of shot prepared, and all the various combustibles used in war compounded; and in the dockyard at that place, some of the largest ships of war are always building or repairing.* In Chatham, and at Rochester, the chief manufactories are those of the government, either for the navy or for the ordnance department. The private manufacturing establishments are not either numerous or extensive. The largest in value is paper, which is made at Maidstone and near Dover, of the best quality; but in other parts, where the water is adapted for the purpose, that trade is carried on; some especially near Westerham. The whole number of males above twenty years of age employed in making paper are 531, of whom 147 reside in the town of Maidstone. The grinding of wheat is a considerable trade, from the goodness of the wheat grown here, and the slight expense of conveying the flour by water to the great market of the metropolis. Some printing of calicoes is carried on, upon the banks of the river Cray. The principal of these works are at Crayford, where 124, and at Bexley, where forty males, above twenty years of age, are employed; but this trade, like that of making paper, gives occupation to many more females than males. At Dartford there are some large manufactories of gunpowder; at Deptford, of several chemical preparations; at Greenwich, of machinery and of combs; and at Maidstone, of bagging for hops.

One of the proudest ornaments of the nation, Greenwich Hospital, for the relief of disabled or aged seamen, is in this county; and, in the park contiguous to it, the Royal Observatory, to which the eyes of all the navigators of Europe are directed, as the place from which issues the nautical ephemeris, which all nations depend on when traversing distant seas.

Though Kent is bounded on three sides by the ocean and the river Thames, it has scarcely any foreign commerce. The harbours are none of them good; those of Dover and Ramsgate are formed by artificial piers, and the former is dry at low water when the sluices are open. The only trade from Dover is to Calais, Dunkirk, and Ostend, for such light goods as can bear the expense of land-carriage. There is a herring fishery conducted from Folkstone; besides which, the principal foreign trade consists in smuggling those various articles whose high duties offer a temptation to encounter such perilous adventures.

„ The sea-shores in this county invite numerous visitors, who frequent and fill various towns during the warm months of summer. The principal of these are Margate, Ramsgate, and Broadstairs; but, besides these, many of the smaller places on the coast are resorted to for purposes of health or amusement. On the western side of the county, the waters of Tunbridge have long been celebrated; and though the influence of fashion has erected into rivals several other Spas, yet the company that still resort to it is both numerous and respectable.

(See Marshall’s Survey ; Boys’s Survey ; Brayley’s Beauties of England and Wales ; and Hasted’s Kent.')