Help with reading electoral rolls

[North Country Boy]

Hello,

I am currently researching my family through the electorcla rolls for Hull and have stumbled across a couple of oddities.

My g-g-grandfather, William Coates is listed on the 1907/08 roll as residing at 3 addresses. They are; 1 Pennington Street, The Groves, 53 Berkshire Street and 128 Hodgson Street and the 1908/09 roll at 4 addresses 46 Witham, 1 Pennington Street, 2 Holborn Street and 36a Buckingham Street.

Does that mean that he resided at all address in that year?

Also my g-grandfather, Albert Olsen who arrived in Hull c. 1905 and first appears on the roll for 1914/15. He next appears on the voting roll from 1919-1922 (there was no roll taken during WW1) and then reappears for 1932/33 only.

Albert was a Swedish subject who, it appears, didn't apply for British citizenship.

Any help would be gratefully recived.

Ian

[suttontrust]

Hi, Ian.  On the first point, are you sure all 3 are the same William Coates?
On the second point, I'm not sure how the electoral list was compiled in those days, but Albert may have neglected to say that he wasn't a British citizen.  In the decade he was missing, he may just have not filled in the forms. 
No help, I know, but you'll probably never know the answer.

[Bee]

Hello Ian,

totally irrelevant to your query but my husbands gt grandparents lived at 54 Berkshire Street in the early 1900's.

Bee

[North Country Boy]

Hello Sutton Trust,

Yes, all addresses relate to the same William Coates. Basically, on the electoral roll, each street is listed in numerical order and William has three addresses listed next to him (and four the year after).

Confusing isn't it.

Ian

[suttontrust]

All I can think of is that he owned all the houses.  But he would have rented out all but one of them.

[Jones the Search]

Are you sure you were looking at an Electoral Register and not the Rates Register.
Rates Registers where separate from the Electoral Register.
A lot of people rented property but the landlord was responsible for the payment of the rates.This was so up until at least 1974.The two where amalgamated to prevent people from voting twice and non payment of rates. Took them long enough to spot it though
Hope this helps
                                Patricia

[1000xlch]

Hi All

Interesting note this on electoral rolls as I was tracing ancestors in the 1900's upwards in Co Durham.  I noticed the same thing.  As far as I am aware it listed the PREVIOUS addresses of the person who was voting as they moved from rented accomodation to rented accomodation, so there last address is given.  Perhaps he moved more than once in the year!

John Rowley

[oly]

Hello John

Electoral Rolls usually have a Heading for each page. The heading quotes how the people below have qualified. One page will be for the head of the household renting a property. The same person can be on another page for owning a property, or separately owning more than one property or a business. A heading can be for local elections another for National elections.
From this it can be seen that the same person can appear a number of times in a particular year.
The important thing is to read the headings on each sheet of the full original copy of the Rolls.

Regarding Rates, I have copies of pages of rate books from the mid 1800,s that states my ancestors house description, eg Brookfield Cottage, and the amount of yearly rate and his name, they certainly did not own the property. I have traced there movements this way. Yes the landlords were responsible for the payment but not being philanthropic the tenant always paid.
So go to your local archives, study the format of the books carefully, reading the headings on the page. I know when we see the name we are looking for we jump for joy and tend to sit back and glow instead of noting every aspect of what we have seen and writing it down.

Regards Oly