Electoral rolls - have any ever been indexed by name?!

[cavair]

Like many other people I'm having trouble tracking down an ancestor in the early 1900s (post 1911 !!) 
Obviously you need an address to check the electoral rolls, but if you havent a clue its time consuming to search them.
Is there a legal obstacle as to why the electoral rolls cannot be scanned and indexed by name in some way?

 my great uncle Richard Nightingale BANKS born in Chorlton Lancs,  but no clue as to where he got married (if at all)  or his death.  I do not know if he emigrated.
But his wife and son are listed as "Mrs BANKS and nephew N. BANKS"  as mourners at my grandfathers funeral in Stockport in 1937.   (Must be his wife as his only brother was killed in WW1 and no marriage traced for him)

We have searched and checked some BMD  entries but nothing matches up for a Richard Banks, and there is nothing with his middle name, though he might have dropped it.
I cant remember if i have checked the phone books for Stockport, but Richard and his family could be anywhere, and there must have been some reason why he was not at the funeral in 1937.

Any ideas about the electoral rolls?!!

   

[PaulineJ]

Is there a legal obstacle as to why the electoral rolls cannot be scanned and indexed by name in some way?
   

Just financial obstacles (for historical rolls) I believe...
when was this chap born?

Pauline

[behindthefrogs]

In the twentieth century many of the Trade Directories like Kelly's were simply an index of the householders taken from the electoral rolls.  They thus form just the index that you are looking for.

David

[cavair]

Richard Nightingale BANKS was born 1885.

Ive looked at some Stockport directories but nothing showed up for the 1920s.

Unless I missed something.  But he could be in Manchester, Warrington,  or anywhere !!
His sister Mary, my grandmother was married in Grt Sankey, Warrington in 1914.
His family (parents) were in Northenden in 1891.   in 1901 - in Irlam (St John)  at Holly House, Liverpool Road (between 194 and 196)  Were they still there in later years?

Thanks for any help anywhere !

[newburychap]

In the twentieth century many of the Trade Directories like Kelly's were simply an index of the householders taken from the electoral rolls.  They thus form just the index that you are looking for.

Directories have the same problem as the electoral rolls - people are listed by address not by name unless they fall into the category listed in the so called court directory or similar. They are, however, much more that the electoral rolls, to describe them simply as an index of householders is to do them a great disservice.

On the issue of indexed rolls there is one for 1832 Berkshire available from Berks FHS.

[kizmiaz]

Directories have the same problem as the electoral rolls - people are listed by address not by name unless they fall into the category listed in the so called court directory or similar.

I don't know about other directories for other towns, but the Pikes and Kellys directories for Brighton have a general index by surname, and then a trade index, by trade and then surname.

It is an absolute godsend apart from when whole streets are just listed as "several small tenements".

Glen

[jorose]

There was a Richard N. Banks in the Hampshire regiment in WWI (documentsonline).  Perhaps he married during WWI, while overseas? Can't see him at first glance in the overseas indexes. 

[Mumsie2131]

when was the war in Spain - a lot of volunteers went from this country and as he'd been in WW1 he may have been one of them.