| Located At | Staffordshire Record Office |
| Stoke on Trent City Archives |
| Level | Collection |
| Doc Ref No | Electoral registers or EReg; SD 1085; SD 1222; SD 1944; SD 1999 |
| Title | Staffordshire electoral registers |
| Administrative History | The first electoral registers from 1832 were created by the Clerk of the Peace and the registers form part of the Quarter Sessions collection (Q/RPr). Please see the section level description for details of the various Acts of Parliaments during this era.
In 1889 the responsibility for administration was passed to the new County Council, and the next series is part of the County Council collection.
From 1984 the registers have been compiled by individual local authority Electoral Registration Officers. From that date the registers are organised within district council boundaries, which may cross constituency boundaries.
Since 2002, for data protection reasons, two sets of electoral registers have been compiled: the Closed or Complete registers; and the Open or Edited registers which are available in local libraries for the current years and which may be made available to commercial organisations, and which contain only the names of those who have not opted out. An access restriction of ten years was introduced by law for all Closed registers. In practice, local authorities have generally retained their post-2002 registers, and sometimes earlier registers as well. |
| Date | 1832-2013 |
| Description | These electoral registers are generally for Parliamentary elections. Lists in the later 19th century also contain lists for people entitled to vote only in municipal elections, such as female heads of household.
Until 1918, qualification to vote was given only to heads of household for a property over a certain value (this value changed over the years). In practice this excluded all rural and urban cottages. In 1918 all men over 21 were given the vote (with a few exceptions), and all women over 30. Women over 21 were given the vote in 1928. The age was reduced to 18 in the late 1960s.
Electoral registers were not bound into volumes until 1918. All registers prior to that date are in the format of large sheets, usually with a cover used as a title sheet, except for the earliest ones which were folded. These sheets were usually fastened in the corner with a brass clip or stitched, while those for larger urban areas were sometimes stitched or glued as pamphlets.
For the purposes of microfilming, all registers to 1908 have since been flattened and all clips and pins removed. The originals are no longer produced for any microfilmed register.
More recent registers may also not be bound, but consist of loose sheets in folders.
Electoral registers for the city of Stoke-on-Trent and predecessor authorities are held at Stoke on Trent City Archives under the references SD 1085, SD 1222, SD 1944 and SD 1999. |
| Access Conditions | Available on microfiche at Staffordshire Record Office for the years 1832-1902 and 1908; microfiches are also available at Stoke on Trent City Archives, Lichfield History Access Point, and Burton Library for the constituencies that cover their respective areas.
Registers for 1903-1907 have not been microfilmed, and are available as original documents at Staffordshire Record Office. There is a universal gap for the whole county from 1909-1917. There are a few stray registers for 1909-1914 held elsewhere including some held at Walsall Archives, or some municipal registers. No Parliamentary registers were compiled during the First World War.
For the purposes of ordering, the reference Electoral register, or EReg, is used for all registers, regardless of the official Quarter Sessions, County Council or District Council reference. All microfiche copies have the reference E/year/constituency name. |
| Related Material | Some electoral registers for Parliamentary Boroughs and for Municipal elections can be found in other collections. There are also poll books and other voting records from the 18th-early 19th century. Please ask for further information.
There are lists of people qualified to serve on juries in the Quarter Sessions collection (Q/RJr), which include the years missing in the electoral register series 1909-1917, continuing to 1922. |