Durham County Record Office County Hall Durham DH1 5UL Telephone (0191) 383 3253 e-mail: record.office@durham.gov.uk website: www.durham.gov.uk/recordoffice USER GUIDE 6 : REGISTERS OF ELECTORS Issue no. 1 July 1994 Introduction Registers of Parliamentary electors were the creation of the 1832 Reform Act. They have been compiled annually since 1832, except 1916-1917 and 1940-1944 (when the most recent register was used), and 1919-1926 when registers were compiled twice yearly. From 1918 to 1919 separate absent voters' registers were compiled for the separate constituencies and in 1945-1949 civilian and service registers were compiled separately for each constituency. Until 1974 the registers were compiled on a constituency basis; thereafter by District Council area. Qualifications to vote The age qualification was 21 until reduced to 18 by an Act of 1969 (effective in 1971). The only exceptions were military personnel of 19 and 20 at the end of World War I, and women, for whom the age qualification was 30 from 1918 to 1928. During the 19th century a wide range of qualifications existed and, until 1885, there were marked differences between the county and borough franchises for parliamentary purposes. 1832-1867 Most existing voting rights were respected for the lifetime of those enjoying them. In counties the £2 freeholder (who had gained the right to vote in 1429) was joined by: anyone having a life interest in, and occupation of, land worth over £2 and under £5 p.a.; all other holders of real property worth at least £10 (e.g. copyholders); tenants of land paying rent of £50 p.a.; leaseholders for 20 years of land with £50 clear annual value and for 60 years of land with a clear annual value of £10; there were also number of other, relatively unimportant, categories. In boroughs occupation, either as owner or tenant, of any house or other building worth £10 p.a. for twelve months prior to the registration date (15 July) and on which all rates and assessed taxes had been charged, formed a new standard franchise. Residence within seven miles of the borough was essential. Joint occupancy of premises would qualify each occupier to vote if the value of the premises divided by the number of occupiers provided each with the necessary qualification. The 1832 Act increased the electorate from 450,000 to 650,000. 1867-1884 The county franchise was extended to occupiers (owners or tenants) of lands rated at £12, who paid poor rates. The £10 qualification for holders of various classes of real estate was halved to £5. In boroughs the franchise was extended to all owners and tenants of dwelling houses (or parts thereof if rated separately), and to lodgers occupying lodgings worth £10 p.a.; in each case with twelve months residence. Thus a householder franchise was created in the boroughs and the electorate doubled to one adult male in three. By 1866 the electorate had risen to 1 million and the 1867 Act increased it to 2 million. 1885-1918 Occupiers and lodgers were enfranchised in the counties as they had been, in 1867, in the boroughs. Freeholders of inherited land (or land acquired by marriage) worth £2, freeholders of any land worth £5 and certain lessees were enfranchised. By 1884 the electorate had increased to 2.6 million and following the 1885 Act 60% of adult males became eligible to vote (virtually all male heads of household), giving a total electorate, in 1885, of 4.4 million. The twelve months' residence requirement persisted. 1918-1948 Any man over 21 with six months' residence, or six months' occupation of business premises of £10 annual value within the constituency, or within a neighbouring constituency, was given the vote. Women aged 30 or over, who were local government electors or the wives of local government electors, were also enfranchised. Some 3 million men and 6 million women were added to the registers, making a total electorate of 21 million. In 1928 the voting age for women was reduced to 21, increasing the electorate to 28.5 million. 1948- The abolition of the business and university franchises left a system of universal adult suffrage with none exercising more than one vote. From 1832 no person could vote in a county parliamentary election in respect of property that would confer a qualification to vote for a borough, but a freehold in a borough of the annual value of £2 but under £10 entitled the owner to vote in the county, as did property valued above £10 if in the occupation of a tenant, but if the owner occupied the premises he had no county vote. One property could give rise to various qualifications for various individuals. Between 1832 and 1918 individuals could be qualified to vote in several constituencies and be qualified by more than one means to vote in a given constituency. The possessor of several qualifications for the one constituency had to select which one to retain, otherwise a standard formula existed for deleting certain types of qualification in preference to other types. An elector could only vote once within a given parliamentary borough or parliamentary county, except where the constituency returned two members, when all electors possessed two votes. After 1918 an elector could only vote twice if his second vote was under the business or university franchise. The business vote was exercised in the usual constituencies; the other by university graduates in separate university constituencies. After 1918 arrangements were made for temporary absences to be covered by both postal and proxy voting systems. Members of the armed services were listed under the constituencies in which they would normally have appeared, in separate absent voters' lists. Specific groups disqualified from voting Those whose names have been omitted from the register, even if they are otherwise qualified to vote; aliens, unless naturalised since 1870; peers (peeresses were deemed qualified by the 1918 Representation of the People Act but they were specifically disqualified by the 1963 Peerage Act, which granted them the right to sit in the House of Lords); lunatics; those serving as policemen, and for six months thereafter (until 1887); election agents and others paid to help at elections (until 1918); those in receipt of public assistance and their spouses and children (until 1918); postmasters (until 1918); commissioners and most collectors of government revenues (until 1918); anyone convicted of bribery at elections (for five years thereafter); anyone serving a prison sentence; World War l conscientious objectors from 1918 to 1923. Format of Registers Until 1918 the registers include the qualification which brought each name onto the register. Also distinguished (from 1878 in boroughs and from 1885 elsewhere) are those who are entitled to vote in certain classes of election but not in others. Unless otherwise stated, the details given here refer to parliamentary elections and parliamentary electoral registers. 1833-1868 Registers were arranged alphabetically by polling district (which covered large areas), and alphabetically by township within each district. Within each township the electors were named in alphabetical order with their place of abode, the nature of their qualification and a description of the qualifying property. 1868-1884 Additional alphabetical tables, with each township, of electors qualifying under the new £12 occupation franchise and those qualifying under the £50 annual rental value franchise (created in 1832). 1885-1915 The registers were arranged by polling district, and by township or civil parish within the polling district. Separate alphabetical tabulations were compiled for each polling district of the two classes of occupation electors (in which the £50 leaseholders were included), ownership electors and lodger electors. The places of abode, nature of qualification and description of the qualifying property continued to be given against each elector's name. A limited number of ownership electors became qualified to vote in the county constituency adjoining the parliamentary borough in which their qualifying property was situated where the occupier of that property was using it as the basis of his qualification to vote in the borough. This obtains from 1832 but becomes more apparent with the change in format of registers in 1885. The parliamentary electoral registers compiled for the various boroughs should be consulted for a more complete picture of the electorate in them. Separate registers of local government electors were kept: not all parliamentary electors were local government electors and vice versa. Where the word "successive" appears in these registers it indicated that the elector had occupied, during the 12 months qualifying period, more than one property within the particular constituency, each of which was of a rateable value to qualify its occupier to vote. 1918-1948 Combined registers of parliamentary and local government electors were produced. Each polling district within the given constituency has a separate section. Information on the civil parish, county council electoral division and, where appropriate, municipal ward in which the properties within the polling district are situated, is provided. Within polling districts, arrangement of the entries was to be, whenever possible, by street order: in practice, for rural areas alphabetical listing by the name of the head of the household persisted. Letter codes and symbols were used to indicate the nature of the qualification to vote: (R = Residence Qualification, N.M. = Naval or Military Voter, BP = Business premises qualification etc.) or the limitations upon the franchise enjoyed (+ = not entitled to vote in respect of county council elections etc.). From 1922 liability for jury service was noted by (J or S.J.). The registers for 1918 and 1919 displayed the various codes and symbols but tabulated those who were only local government electors and those who were only parliamentary electors separately. For absent voters see below. 1949-1973 Combined registers of parliamentary and local government electors were produced: the few electors not entitled to vote in certain classes of election are indicated, as are jurors, by a letter code. Each polling district is represented by a separate section of the register. Within a polling district the electorate is arranged in alphabetical street order, thence by house number order. Dates There are two principal dates associated with each register, the 'qualifying date' by which a voter establishes the right to vote in that constituency and the date on which the register comes into force. For many purposes, the qualifying date is the most meaningful, since it should establish ownership, occupation or residence at a particular address on or by that date. For various classes of local government registers the qualifying and operative dates were different from those for parliamentary registers. Sources of inaccuracies in the registers Between the qualifying date and the operative date of the register many voters will have died, and many others will have moved house (the 1878 Parliamentary and Municipal Registration Act allowed data to be transferred every quarter from Registrars of Death to those compiling electoral registers, but this does not seem to have been particularly effective). Correspondingly, individuals will have moved into a constituency after the qualifying date, and be unable to register. Until 1928 voters who were to reach the qualifying age during a register's currency might not have been found on it. Some of those otherwise qualified deliberately chose not to register. Formerly, rates had to be paid by the qualifying date, and rate collectors sometimes died, leaving late collection inevitable. Rates which were paid through the landlord instead of directly to the local authority could not be included. In the early years, registration cost one shilling, and some did not think it worth the price. Registers of Local Government Electors Before 1918 these contain a greater proportion of the population than the parliamentary registers. Those for county councils run from the inception of these bodies in 1889 to 1915 when, like the parliamentary registers, compilation was suspended. The county franchise was given to all those who could vote in parliamentary elections as £10 occupiers as well as to existing burgess voters. These registers are arranged by county council electoral district. Burgesses were the electors of the borough councils. The 1835 Municipal Corporation Act standardised the borough franchise to those living within seven miles of the borough who had occupied rateable property for two and a half years (reduced to one year in 1870) and paid rates. From 1878 parliamentary and burgess lists were frequently drawn up together, and tended to be in street order. Residents of a municipal borough were represented on the county council and those duly qualified to vote appear in the county's local government electoral registers; residents of county boroughs (created in and after 1889) were not and do not. Separate non-resident lists were compiled for both boroughs and counties for those qualified to be elected to those councils but resident more than 7 miles yet within 15 miles of the borough or county. In 1894 (civil) parish councils were created, urban sanitary authorities became urban district councils and rural district councils formed for rural sanitary districts. The electorate for all of these bodies, known as 'parochial electors', was the combined parliamentary and county council electorate for the particular area concerned. Unmarried women were included in the burgess rolls from 1869 and hence in the registers of county electors from 1889. Married women were enfranchised for local government elections in 1894 provided that the property which qualified the husband could not be used to provide the qualification of the wife. Constituencies Each reform act either contained provisions for redistributing seats or was followed, in the same Parliament, by a separate act for that purpose. Temporary arrangement for splitting certain populous constituencies were made in 1945 and thereafter a mechanism for regular revisions of constituency boundaries was put in place in order to maintain the rough alignment of constituencies with the number of voters in them. Minor revisions in boundaries became possible by Statutory Instrument in addition to the periodic general revisions. It is important to note that a town might be a municipal or county borough without being a parliamentary borough (e.g. Jarrow from 1875 to 1955), conversely a town might be a parliamentary borough but not a local government borough (e.g. South Shields from 1832 to 1850) and one parliamentary borough might represent two local government boroughs (e.g. The Hartlepools constituency). A parliamentary borough need not share the boundaries of the local government borough of the same name (e.g. parts of Westoe were incorporated into South Shields county borough yet remained in Jarrow parliamentary constituency). The apparent continuance of a constituency of a given name may mask radical revisions of its boundaries. 1832 - 1867 1918 - 1948 (continued) Durham City (MB from 1835) Borough Houghton-le-Spring County Gateshead (MB from 1835) Borough Jarrow County South Shields Borough Seaham County Sunderland (MB from 1835) Borough Sedgefield County Northern Division County South Shields Borough Southern Division County Spennymoor County Stockton-on-Tees Borough 1867- 1885 Sunderland Borough Darlington (MB from 1867) Borough Durham City Borough 1949 - 1970 Gateshead Borough Bishop Auckland County The Hartlepools Borough Blaydon County South Shields (MB from 1850) Borough Chester-le-Street County Stockton (MB from 1835) Borough Consett County Sunderland Borough Darlington Borough Northern Division County Durham County Southern Division County Easington County Gateshead East Borough 1885 - 1915 Gateshead West Borough Barnard Castle County The Hartlepools Borough Bishop Auckland County Houghton-le-Spring County Chester-le-Street County Jarrow County (Borough Darlington Borough from 1955) Durham City Borough North West Durham County Gateshead (CB from 1889) Borough Sedgefield County The Hartlepools Borough South Shields Borough Houghton-le-Spring County Stockton-on-Tees Borough Jarrow (MB from 1875) County Sunderland North Borough Mid-Durham County Sunderland South Borough North-Western Durham County South-Eastern Durham County 1971 - 1974 South Shields (CB from 1889) Borough Bishop Auckland County Stockton Borough Blaydon Borough Sunderland (CB from 1889) Borough Chester-le-Street County Consett County 1918 - 1948 Darlington Borough Barnard Castle County Durham County Bishop Auckland County Easington County Blaydon County Gateshead Borough Chester-le-Street County Hartlepool Borough Consett County Houghton-le-Spring County Darlington (CB from 1915) Borough Jarrow Borough Durham County North West Durham County Gateshead Borough South Shields Borough The Hartlepools Borough Stockton-on-Tees Borough Sunderland Borough HANDLISTS:USERGUIDE06.DOC/25-Aug-04/16:18 page 1