Poll Books in England and Wales: Difference between revisions

The 1832 Act preserved many of these borough rights but extended the vote to inhabitant householders and occupiers at the annual value of £10. It took away the representation of 56 boroughs in England, mostly in the south, but created 42 more, many in the Midlands and north of England. Before 1832 some 188,391 men had the right to vote in the boroughs in England and Wales, a figure which went up to 285,958 after the 1832 reforms and to 1,195,360 after those in 1867 which extended voting rights to lodgers paying at least £10 a year.  

In view of the destruction of the centralised collection in 1907 it is fortunate that the Act of 1696 had encouraged the making of copies of the manuscript books and, following the next general election in 1702, several county polls were printed. This was usually done by a local printer, sometimes in a local newspaper. Publication of the lists soon became widespread. About 2,000 books were printed altogether, listing the voters in about one-third of all contested elections between 1702 and 1872. They are more frequent in the 19th century and they exist for about half the elections between 1830 and 1872. The earliest is that for Essex mentioned previously and the last (except for the universities) is for the by-election in Bedfordshire in June 1872.  

Although there seems always to have been a ready market for the lists, the cost of printing those for large electorates became prohibitive. No Middlesex poll was published after 1802 and although polls were regularly printed for Bolton and Oldham, only two appeared for the larger electorate in Manchester (in 1832 and 1839). Probably for similar reasons, no county poll was ever published in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset or the North Riding of Yorkshire, though several for their boroughs have survived. Some that are known to have been printed are not found in any public library or record office: these include Cambridgeshire for 1830, the Isle of Wight for 1852 and 1859 and Rutland for 1754.  

In cases where no printed version of the poll exists then the original manuscript list may survive amongst the sessions records. In the County of Hertford, for example, manuscript lists survive for the years 1714, 1722, 1727, 1736, 1761 and 1802 in addition to the printed lists for 1734, 1754, 1774, 1784, 1790, 1796, 1805 and 1832, and there is a manuscript list for the borough of St Albans in 1818 that has not been printed. Maidstone in Kent has a remarkable series of printed polls and a gap between 1790 and 1802 is nicely filled by a manuscript poll for 1796. Similarly a gap in those for Bristol between 1812 and 1830 is filled by a manuscript list in 1820.  

Although most manuscript lists are for the period after 1696, a number of important lists for earlier years have survived. Shropshire has one for 1676 and Essex for 1679. Others are listed in the guide by Jeremy Gibson and Colin Rogers mentioned below.  

The internal arrangement of many poll books is often confusing and they should be searched with care. In the early books the names of the voters were listed under the names of the candidates for whom they voted. Later, many books show the names by parish, the parishes themselves being arranged by Hundred. There may, however, be an index of parishes at the beginning, or an index of voters' names at the end. The catalogue of the collection at the Society of Genealogists has carefully indicated the many different arrangements found.  

In borough polls the occupation of the voter if often given and after 1832 there are frequently separate lists of non-resident voters and of those who did not vote although qualified to do so (the "non-voters") such as those of Hull in 1847 who were at sea. The 1741 Poll for Newcastle-upon-Tyne divides the voters according to their trades and does not show their addresses, perhaps allowing other traders to use and place their sons as apprentices with people of the same political persuasion.  

Poll books can be used like the trade directories of the 19th century to localise individuals and to trace their life spans, as well as to discover their political affiliations.  

Printed poll books were often used by canvassers at the next election and a number survive (like that for Buckinghamshire in 1784 at the Society of Genealogists; FS Library fiche 6202640) that have been marked up with changes of address and freehold, as well as notes of death, and these are particularly interesting.  

Most manuscript poll books are found in county or local authority record offices with the printed books either there or in a local studies library. There are large collections in the British Library, Guildhall Library, Bodleian Library and at the Institute of Historical Research at London University. The collection at Guildhall Library was destroyed by enemy action in 1940 but another has since been assembled and a catalogue printed (1970) that indicates those that include addresses and/or occupations.