MIDDLESEX, an English county, and, though in extent one of the least, yet, as containing within it the metropolis of the British empire, with its numerous population, its extensive wealth, and its repositories of art and science, and being the theatre of the most interesting historical and political transactions, naturally attracts to it the attention of all who are connected with the united kingdoms.

This county is bounded on the north by Hertfordshire; on the west by Buckinghamshire; on the south by Surrey, and at the eastern point by a small portion of Kent; and on the east by Essex. Its general figure is quadrangular, but rendered very irregular by the course of the rivers Thames, Coln, and Lea, which bound it on three sides, and by a considerable projection into Hertfordshire on the north. Its greatest length is twenty-three and its greatest breadth seventeen miles. Its square contents are estimated at 285 miles, or 182,400 statute acres.

According to the census of 1831, the whole number of inhabitants was 1,358,330, of whom 631,410 were males and 726,920 were females. These composed 314,039 families, of whom 9882 were chiefly occupied in agriculture; 173,822 were chiefly occupied in trade, manufactures, and handicraft; and the remainder, 130,335, were not comprehended in either of these two classes.

A more minute classification is as follows :—

Males under twenty years of age 358,521

Occupiers of land, employing labourers 1,050

Occupiers of land, not employing labourers 490

Labourers employed in agriculture 11,376

Employed in manufacture, or in making manufac turing machinery 11,064

Employed in retail trade, or in handicraft, as mas ters or workmen , 163,220

Capitalists, bankers, professional and other educat ed men 49,457

Labourers employed in labour other than agricultural 79,735

Other males, twenty years of age, not servants.... 22,549 Male servants, twenty years of age 19,578

Male servants under twenty years of age 5,923

Female servants 87,554

The baptisms of 1830 were, males 167,444, of females 165,683; the burials in the same were, of males 148,390, and of females 141,529. The marriages were 13,295. The illegitimate children born in the same year were, of males 526, of females 380.

The proportion of burials to the whole population, which in 1801 was one in thirty-one, was in 1830 one in forty-two. The amount expended for the relief of the poor had varied but little during the ten years from 1820 to 1830. In the first of these years it amounted to L.625,665, and in the last to L.68l,567.
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The annual value of the real property of the county, as assessed in the year 1815, was L.5,595,337. The increase of the population is shown by the several decennial enumerations to have been as follows, viz. in 1801, 818,129; in 1811, 953,276, being an increase of seventeen per cent.; in 1821, 1,144,531, being an increase of twenty per cent.; and in 1831, 1,358,200, being an increase of nineteen per cent. The whole increase in the thirty years has been sixty-five per cent. If the same rate of increase should .continue till 1841, which there seems no reason to doubt, the county will then have doubled its inhabitants in about the period of forty or forty-one years.

The county is divided into six hundreds, and the three cities of London within the.,walls, London without the walls, and Westminster. The most populous of the hundreds, that of Ossulstone, is formed into four divisions.
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The places of most note in this county, besides the cities of London and Westminster, are towns which have sprung up from their contiguity or vicinity to the metropolis, and which, in many instances, though forming only suburbs, are to all appearance, and to all practical purposes, parts of the great city. In giving the population, those places in contact with London must be first noticed.

Mary-le-bone parish 122,206

Pancras, with its hamlets 103,548

Paddington 14,540

Bethnal Green 62,018

Chelsea 32,371

Kensington, with its hamlets 20,902

Shadwell 9,544

Stepney parish, including Poplar, Black wall, Limehouse, Mile-end, Old and

New Town, and Ratcliffe 67,872

Bromley .∙ 4,846

The other populous places not in contact with the metropolis are,

Hackney, with its hamlets 31,047

Islington 37,316

Fulham, with Hammersmith 17,539

Hampsteed 8,588

Ealing, including Old Brentford 7,783

Tottenham 6,937

Enfield 8,812

Cheswick 4,994

Twickenham 4,571

Hornsey, with part of Highgate 4,857

Hampton, including the court and Hamp ton Wick 3,992

Hendon 3,110

Uxbridge, with Hillingdon 6,885

Heston, with a part of Hounslow 3,407

Stoke-Newington 3,480

Staines 2,486

Edmonton 8,192

Harrow λ 3,861

Isleworth 5,590

The face of this county may be described as a gently sloping tract rising from the banks of the Thames, its southern boundary, to the hills on the north, none of which rises more than 350 feet above the level of that river, and few attain even that height. In receding from the banks of the stream, the surface is gently undulated, with sufficient slope to secure the necessary drainage. The prospects in the southern division of the county, from the level nature of its surface, are not distinguished by extent or variety; and the eye is only relieved from the fatigue of uniformity, by the numerous buildings, plantations, gardens, and the rich verdure of productive grass fields. Even in the more hilly parts of the county the prospects are far less impressive than those upon the opposite banks of the Thames, or those which are to be seen upon the borders of that river before it enters Middlesex. The best prospects of a rural kind are from the range of hills stretching from Pinner, Stanmore, Elstree, Totteridge, and Barnet, to the forest scenery of Enfield Chace. The Hill of Harrow, a projection from this ridge, is one of the highest points; and the whole of the richly-cultivated valley of Middlesex is comprehended in the view from it.

The original soil on the southern side of the county is of a most sterile kind of gravel; but the vast quantities of manure which have been furnished to it from the extensive cities in its vicinity, have been so spread over the surface, that a most luxuriantly-productive soil of garden mould has been created; and from the same cause it is renewed as rapidly as it becomes exhausted by the crops grown upon it. The northern part of the county generally consists of a soil of clayey loam, which, though rather difficult to plough, is, when properly pulverised, very well adapted for the cultivation of wheat, and has been long celebrated for the excellent quality of that grain which is produced upon it. The table of Queen Elizabeth was regularly furnished with white bread from the wheat grown in the vicinity of Hounslow. In several parts of the county the loamy clay, converted by the addition of cinders, technically called breeze, into bricks, becomes the most profitable application of the soil. This is peculiarly the case where such soil is found in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis, or upon the banks of the rivers or canals that communicate with it. “Round the one-mile stone on the Kingsland Road,” says Mr Middleton, “the surface is [7:15:60]lowered from four to ten feet, by the earth having been dug up and manufactured into bricks, over an extent of more than 1000 acres; and it has been levelled, ploughed up, and laid down to grass. It is sufficiently dry, and by the help of town manure is restored again to excellent grass land; though it had previously yielded to the community, through the medium of the brickmakers, upwards of L.4000 per acre on an average of the whole level; but there are a few acres of choice marl earth, which have produced through the same medium L.20,000 per acre.”

The greater portion of the land in the county is appropriated to the cultivation of grass, which is converted into hay for the supply of the numerous horses kept in the metropolis. These upland meadows have been gradually extending as the metropolis has increased, so that at present not more than 20,000 acres are under cultivation by the plough. The meadows, however, even those which have been longest laid down in herbage, discover the marks of their having been formerly ploughed. The great consumption of hay in the London markets has induced the most skill to be applied to that particular branch of rural economics which, under the term haymaking, is usually deemed the simplest of all agricultural operations, but which is here managed in so superior a way as to bring to the stack hay of a quality far better than is preserved in the more distant counties. The corn grown in this county is inconsiderable. Upon an average of years, about 10,000 acres are sown with wheat, about 4000 with barley, about 3000 with beans, and about 2000 with pease; some rye is grown, but principally for green food, and scarcely any oats are cultivated. There are fewer sheep and cows kept in Middlesex than in any other county; but of the latter some thousands are maintained solely for the purpose of supplying milk for the consumption of the metropolis. Many pigs are fattened from the offal produced in the vast breweries and malt distilleries of London and its vicinity.

The horticulture of Middlesex, although it does not extend over quite so great a surface as its arable culture, produces a far greater annual return. Exclusively of the gardens attached to the houses of the nobility and gentry, the extent of land appropriated to the growth of fruit is reckoned by Mr Middleton to be 3000 acres, of that devoted to culinary vegetables 10,000, and of that used as nursery grounds and plantations 1500. The same writer estimated the annual value of the productions of horticulture at somewhat more than one million sterling. The gardeners of Middlesex practise a wonderful economy in the raising of crops. The fruit gardeners have what they call an upper and an under crop growing on the same ground at the same time. First, the ground is stocked with apples, pears, cherries, plums, walnuts, &c. like a complete orchard, and Called the upper crop. It is secondly fully planted with raspberries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries, and all such fruits, shrubs, and herbs as are known to sustain the shade and drippings from the trees above them without the least injury; this they term the under crop. Some of these gardens have walls which are completely clothed with fruit-trees, such as peaches, nectarines, apricos, plums, and various others, all adapted to the aspect of the wall. In order to increase the quantity of warmth and shelter in autumn, they raise earthen banks of about three feet in height, laid to a slope of forty-five degrees to the sun. On these slopes they plant endive in the month of September; and near the bottoms of them they drill pease from October to Christmas; by this means the endive is preserved from rotting, and, as well as the pease, reaches maturity at an early period. The common routine of the best kitchen gardeners is the following: Soon after Christmas, when the weather is open, they begin by sowing the borders, and then the quarters, with radishes, spinach, onions, and all the other seed crops. As soon afterwards as the season will permit, which is generally in February, the same ground is planted with cauliflowers from the frames, as thick as if no other crop had then possession of the ground. The radishes, &c. are soon sent to market; and when the cauliflowers are so far advanced as to be earthed up, sugar-loaf cabbages are planted from the before-mentioned seed crops; and daily as these crops are sent to market, the same ground is cropped with celery for winter use. The foregoing rotation is the common practice, but there are many deviations, according to the judgment of the cultivators, the state of the weather, and the demands of the market. Such a system, however, can be pursued only in the vicinity of great cities, the abundant manure of which gives the means of raising vegetable productions in defiance of the inclemency of our northern winters. A species of cultivation of a nondescript kind, partaking of the nature of agriculture and horticulture, is extensively pursued in this county. The ground is ploughed in January and February, and cropped with early pease, which are gathered green in June. The land is then sowed with turnips, which are sold in autumn, when the kind of cabbages called collards are planted, and these three crops are annually raised from the same soil.

Manufactures of every kind may be ascribed to this county, in so far as the best workmen of every description are employed in London for combining, fitting, and finishing all the commodities requisite for the consumption of the metropolis, which is at the same time the seat of government, the temporary residence of the wealthiest subjects of Great Britain, and the greatest sea-port of the empire , but workmen of this kind, forming more than 400 classes, cannot be here so appropriately described as under the article London, to which the reader is referred.

In the more appropriate application of the word manufacture, none of importance can be attributed to Middlesex, other than that of silk, which subsists in Spittaifields, and which employs upwards of 5000 males above twenty years of age. In St Mary’s parish, Whitechapel, 440 men of that age are employed in sugar-refining. Ship-building, and the various auxiliaries of that art, such as rope-making, sail-making, block-making, anchor-making, and the fabrication of copper sheathing and bolts for ships, with numerous smaller articles, employ a great number of persons. There are manufactories of chemical preparations at Bow, mustard-mills at Staines, copper-works at Harefield, and mills for throwing silk in many places.

The rivers of Middlesex are, the Thames, the Coln, the Brent, and the Lea. The former of these is navigable for barges, along almost its whole extent, to Leachlade in Gloucestershire, within a few miles of its source. The tide is felt as high as Teddington, above which the navigation is performed by penning the ∖vater at various locks till a sufficient body is collected, which, by making what is locally called a flash, permits the passage of the barges over the obstructions and shoals, which, a few hours after, become again impassable. The picturesque beauties on the banks of*this stream are too well known to need a description in this place. The Coin is not navigable. It enters Middlesex from Hertfordshire at the north-western extremity of the county, and falls into the Thames in various channels at considerable distances from each other, having in its course been applied to the working of numerous mills for paper, corn, and other purposes. The Brent, also not navigable, enters the county from Hertfordshire, and joins the Thames at Brentford. The Lea is navigable for barges along its whole course through this county. It enters from Hertfordshire, forms the eastern boundary of Middlesex, and joins the Thames at Limehouse, below London. Besides these natural streams, the artificial one called the New River belongs to this county. The artificial channel in which this stream flows towards London has a very devious[7:15:61] course, in order to keep the waters at a due level. It is ultimately received into a spacious reservoir near Islington, whence, by means of pipes, its water is conveyed through the streets of the metropolis to the houses of individuals.

Amongst the public works of this county, the canals deserve notice. These are, the Grand Junction, the Paddington, and the Regent’s Canal. The first forms a connection with the whole interior of the kingdom, and the second is connected with it. Through them, internal navigation is conducted to the manufacturing counties, and to the distant ports of Liverpool, Bristol, and Hull, and to the potteries, iron-fonnderies, and collieries of Staffordshire and Warwickshire. The Regent’s Canal surrounds the whole of the northern side of the metropolis, around which it describes a semicircle, commencing at the dock of the Paddington Canal, and terminating at the river Thames at Limehouse. Its principal utility is supposed to be derived from forming the means of conveying coals and other heavy commodities from the river to the more distant parts of the capital without expensive land-carriage. We may here notice two works actually in operation, which may become of vast importance. These are, the railroad from London to Birmingham, which has been considerably advanced, and a similar one to Southampton, already commenced. For another to Bristol an act of parliament has been obtained.

The docks constructed of late years for the facilities of commerce are most extensive and magnificent works, and the warehouses which surround them are wonderful exhibitions of the commercial opulence of this country, having been all completed from the capitals of individuals. The West India Docks contain about sixty acres of water, in which the largest vessels can float. The London or Wapping Docks arc of nearly the same extent. The St Catherine’s Docks, finished in 1828, can accommodate annually 1400 vessels; and, being near the centre of the trading establishments, are found of vast benefit. The East India Docks are more than thirty acres; and near them is a dock belonging to private individuals (Messrs Wigram and Green), of nearly twenty acres, where the business of shipbuilding is carried on upon a scale which exceeds that of most of the establishments of the governments of Europe.

The most remarkable edifices of this county are more properly described under the articles London and Westminster in this work. Beyond the limits of these cities may be noticed the· palaces of Hampton Court and Kensington; the Hospital of Chelsea, for invalid soldiers; the Royal Military Asylum; the bridges of Staines, Vauxhall, and Waterloo; Middlesex Hospital; St George’s Hospital; Jews’ Hospital; and Harrow School. The number of other erections, of a second and third order, are too numerous for recapitulation.

The changes of property have been so rapid in this county, and the taste for substituting fashionable novelty in the room of venerable antiquity has been so prevalent, that very few first-rate seats are to be found, but a vast number of second and third-rate houses, which, if removed from the vicinity of the metropolis, would attract considerable notice. The most remarkable residences are, Bently Priory, Marquis of Abercorn; Bushy Park, the residence of his present majesty when Duke of Clarence; Caenwood, Earl of Mansfield; Chiswick House, Duke of Devonshire; Fulham Palace, Bishop of London; Holland House, Lord Holland; Littleton, Thomas Wood, Esq.; Osterley House, Earl of Jersey; Sion House, Duke of Northumberland; Strawberry Hill, Countess of Waldegrave; Wrothauι Park, George Byng, Esq.; Harrow, Lord Northwick; and Sion Hill, Duke of Marlborough.

(See Middleton’s View of the Agriculture of Middlesex·, and Brayley’s Beauties of England and Wales.) Middlesex is also the name of four different counties in the United States of America, one of which is in Massachusetts, another in Connecticut, a third in New Jersey, and the fourth in Virginia.