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Topic: Norfolk poll books 1768 & 1818. Anyone know what's in them? (Read 259 times)
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meles
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Posts: 2917
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I think the Norfolk Records Office will do a search for you for free. Any print outs will cost a little.
http://www.noah.norfolk.gov.uk/
meles
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Brock: Alburgh, Norfolk, and after 1850, London; Tooley: Norfolk Grimmer: Norfolk; Grimson: Norfolk Harrison: London; Pollock Dixon: Hampshire; Collins: Middx Jeary: Norfolk; Davison: Norfolk Rogers: London; Bartlett: London Drew: Kent; Alden: Hants Gamble: Yorkshire; Huntingford: East London Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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Bill749
RootsChat Aristocrat
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crowdin' 60 and still wearin' genes!
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You will probably find that the names are all of Freemen or owners of Freehold property at that time.
Also, as they were printed after an election, they only show the names of men who actually voted, but they will tell you who they voted for (elections were not secret until 1832). They will also tell you how they were qualified to vote, but will not give you any addresses.
Bill
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Banks, Beer, Bowes, Castle, Cloak, Coachworth, Dixon, Farr, Golder, Graves, Hicks, Hogbin, Holmans, Marsh, Mummery, Nutting, Pierce, Rouse, Sawyer, Sharp, Snell, Willis: mostly in East Kent. Ey, Sawyer: London Evans: Ystradgynlais, Wales Snell: Snettisham, Norfolk Knight, Burgess, Ellis: Hampshire Purdy: Ireland/Canada/Durham/Pennsylvania McCann: Ireland Morrow: Pennsylvania Sparnon: any Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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Mean_genie
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Posts: 512
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Poll books vary quite a bit in format, because they weren't official publications, so it depended on the publisher. I don't have any particular knowledge of the Norfolk ones. The kind of people listed would depend on the franchise in the area concerned, which could vary quite a bit before 1832 - there would be little point in a poll book for a 'rotten borough' like Old Sarum, with only a handful of voters, but Westminster, for example, had a pretty wide electorate (and a number of its poll books have been reprinted).
Some of them stuck to the bald facts; who could vote, who did vote, who they voted for. Others gave background information about the election and the campaign; I have seen one in Cheshire that included not only candidates' speeches but the words of campaign songs. In another case, in Yorkshire, there was a list of potential voters whose qualification to vote had been challenged, and on what grounds. A Kent poll book took a less colourful approach, but analysed the election results in great detail. On the whole Poll Books were politically neutral, but they could be extremely partisan in their accounts of the campaign, and one Leicestershire book devoted several pages to an account of the election that can be summarized as 'We wuz robbed!'
Not every election resulted in a poll book, it depended on whether a publisher thought it would be a commercially worthwhile venture, and when the secret ballot was introduced in 1872 they ceased altogether. There is a Gibson Guide on the subject which lists known poll books and their locations, and has a useful introduction.
Mean_genie
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