Genealogy
West Riding Electoral Registers
Registers of electors in Parliamentary elections were first required to be compiled in 1832. The first West Riding register dates from 1840. Each entry gives the full name of the elector, place of abode, the nature of his qualification for the franchise, and details of the property by which his right to vote was established. The Act of 1832 also stipulated that each entry was to be numbered in one series, but no serial numbers appear in the West Riding registers until 1844. From that year the register was divided, for convenience, into two parts.
Each register before 1886 contains the polling districts arranged in alphabetical order, and within each district the constituent townships are similarly arranged. Every polling district is prefaced by an index listing the townships it contains, and the number of voters in each township.
The period for which the registers were in force was never identical with the calendar year. For convenience, the date given in the list is the year which contained the greater part of the term for which the register was current. For example, the register in force from November 1839 to October 1840 is listed as the electoral register for 1840.
The Act to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales, 1832 required the clerk of the peace to compile a register of electors, comprising those entitled to vote for members of parliament in the county constituency, from the lists returned to him by the revising barristers. These lists were intended to be kept among the records of the sessions, but none have survived for the West Riding. The registration provisions of the Act were amended by an Act of 1843 , and by an Act of 1872
A statutory requirement for the production of two separate registers for the West Riding was introduced by an Act of 1861, which provided for the division of the West Riding into two, Northern and Southern Divisions, each of which were to elect two members of parliament, instead of the two members given by the Act of 1832 . For the years 1862, 1863 and 1864 there are two series of registers, those compiled under the provisions of the Act of 1843 and those compiled under the Act of 1861.
No registers were compiled for 1867. Under the provisions of The Representation of the People Act, 1867 - Schedule D - the West Riding was divided into three: the Northern Division, Mid Division, and Southern Division, each to return two members. From 1868 the voters in each township were divided into two lists. The first contained owners of property of a value of not less than £5 a year and occupiers of property leased for £50 or more a year and the second contained those newly-enfranchised by the Act of 1867 who occupied property rated between £12 and £50 a year.
The Seventh Schedule of the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885 divided the West Riding into nineteen divisions, each returning one member.Electors were divided into three groups, owners, occupiers and lodgers.
The number of electors in the West Riding in 1843 was 33,863; in 1867 it was 40,680; in 1870 it was 56,920; in 1885 it was 73,218; and by 1886 it had risen to 210,150.
Boroughs which returned their own members were obliged to compile their own electoral registers. Ripon, Knaresborough and Pontefract were parliamentary boroughs before 1832, and continued to be so after that date. The borough constituencies created in the West Riding in 1832 were Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Sheffield and Wakefield. Dewsbury was created a borough consituency in 1867.
The Local Government Act, 1888 , transferred responsibility for all electoral matters from quarter sessions to the newly-created county councils.
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