Poll books (and, later, electoral rolls) can be a valuable resource for family historians, and a wide range of them from the 18th and 19th centuries are available online at TheGenealogist.co.uk. They were kept from as far back as the 1690s, so not only do poll books predate the census by more than a century, but if your forebear is included in these lists you can learn a great deal about him and his status in society.

Poll books provide extensive information about men over 21 who were eligible to vote in parliamentary, county and (from 1843) borough elections, including their full names, addresses, occupation, land, income and property generally, as well as who they voted for. They were kept until the 1872 Ballot Act, which made voting secret.

So, poll books are a very valuable source of genealogical information, but they can be tricky to use. Indexes are rare, which means it is sometimes necessary to scour the pages one by one. Many books are handwritten (so can be tricky to read), while others are printed. Some are better organised than others, with voters listed alphabetically. Bear in mind, also, that they only contain names of men who had voted in an election rather than those who were able to vote.

Poll books were actually collated and published by local publishers and printers rather than by a clerk or parliamentary official, which often accounts for the many mistakes and the varying ways in which the listings are presented and arranged. Some publishers included extra information in their listings, which it can be well worth looking at, as this can add a great deal of colour to the material. For example, the publisher of the 1818 Westminster poll book (available at TheGenealogist.co.uk), perhaps in his own bid to invoke reform, took it upon himself to print some of the threatening letters he had received by those angered by the unfairness of the voting system. One begins:

Sir, although I deem you one of the most despicable parasites that ever disgraced this nether sphere and your life as such far less valuable than that of the basest reptile ever-crawled upon the face of the Earth…

Before the 1832 Reform Act, correctly called the Representation of the People Act, elections in Britain were deeply unfair and certainly not representative of the people. Those who could vote were usually the wealthy (as entitlement was linked to property ownership), yet many of them were influenced by the fact that their ballots were not secret. The notorious rotten borough system, in which very few people were eligible to vote but which had the same representation as larger, more populous areas, still held great power, as did ‘pocket’ boroughs – those controlled by one family or person. Their removal by the 1832 act took away something many families had seen as their birthright – a place within parliament – as their former strongholds were absorbed into new constituencies. Despite this positive step, unfortunately, the act did little to enfranchise the working classes, who had to wait a good few decades before being awarded the vote.

The Reform Act only increased the electorate by around 18%, a figure comprising adult men of the higher classes, and, of course, no women. It also failed to introduce a secret ballot. It did, however, pave the way for later parliamentary reform, as well as introducing electoral registers, which recorded the names of all those entitled to vote and not just those who voted.

Poll books can be found in most local studies libraries and record offices, and the Institute of Historical Research in London and the British Library also have extensive collections. Some, like those found at www.TheGenealogist.co.uk, are digitised and can be searched. TheGenealogist holds records for Norfolk (1768, 1806, 1817; London, Westminster (1774, 1818, 1841); Suffolk (1710, 1790); Yorkshire (1741); Yorkshire, York (1807, 1868); Yorkshire, West Riding (1835); and Yorkshire, Kingston-upon-Hull (1835). Diamond Premium subscribers also have access to a number of other electoral registers and poll books.

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