Electoral Roll Dukinfield

[fuzzyfink]

Does anybody know if Electoral Roll records for Dukinfield are kept anywhere other than Tameside Local Studies Library.
I'm looking for 1951 in particular, which they don't have.

[Gay J Oliver]

I am really sorry, but if they are not at the Archives Library, they won't have survived. Tameside Local Studies is the repository for all pre Tameside Local Government Archives and when Tameside was formed in 1974 they gathered together everything which had survived from all the nine towns.

There never was a legal requirement to save older electroral registers and the coverage in the Archives is patchy, in a way we are lucky that they have saved so many. Another large gap in the collection are those from Ashton between 1931-1961 and I have a feeling that those for Droylsden didn't survive at all (must check on this)

[fuzzyfink]

:)That's a shame. Thanks for the reply.

[pok4r]

hi,
i just returned from a visit to the local studies and i to went through rates and voters list for Dukinfeild some years around 1960 were missing, but i was told by staff they may be available in Oldham, although i did'nt have time to go there, but maybe

[gargoyle]

I'm clueless on these, what sort of information is actualy found in an electoral roll?

[Woody]

Electoral Registers are just lists of all the people entitled to vote in local and parliamentary elections.

The first major blockage to searching the electoral rolls is that if you don’t have an address, you might just as well not bother - unless you have a spare month to plough through every single name in a register.

The second potential blockage is that, for electoral purposes, local authorities are divided up into wards. To find an address in the electoral roll, you will first need to know which ward it was in, and the number of wards and their boundaries has changed repeatedly.

If you do have the address, there are usually street indexes attached to electoral rolls that will help you to find the right ward.

There will also be a few notable exceptions to inclusion on the electoral roll, including:

· Even on modern electoral registers, people who have not registered to vote will not appear on the register.
· The years 1916-17 and 1940-44, when no elections were held
· Juveniles below the age of 18
· Homeless people
· Travellers and gypsies,
· Active serving armed forces members
· Some government personnel
· People persons serving prison sentences
· non-British citizens.

There are also other factors that will affect whose name appears on the electoral roll, especially in respect of the era that you’re searching.

Prior to 1918, there’s usually a distinction made between a person’s entitlement to vote in local and parliamentary elections, for example:

· The parliamentary electorate (i.e. those who voted for MPs) was tied to property ownership and only included male owners and tenants (aged 21 or over) of dwelling houses, and lodgers paying at least £10 per annum who had lived at the same address for 12 months or more.

· The local government electorate (i.e. those who voted in the local Council elections) included men and women who had occupied rateable property in the borough for one year, paid rates, and lived within a defined distance of the borough.

As a result, there are key dates to bear in mind when searching.

1918 - when the rules governing local and parliamentary elections were simplified and became more liberal. All men aged 21 or over who were normally resident in the constituency were then able to vote. All women aged 30 or over who were local government voters, or were the wives of local government voters, were given the parliamentary franchise for the first time (until 1918, women could vote for local councillors, but not for MPs).

1928 - when all men and women aged 21 or over were finally enfranchised

1969 – when the qualification age for both men and women was lowered to age 18.

Hope this helps.

[gargoyle]

Woody,
Thanks for the information but I can't quite see the value for family history, no doubt some may find it useful.