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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: Brian87 on Tuesday 17 February 26 19:25 GMT (UK)
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I have my grandmother's death certificate showing date of death as being 12 January 1945. However she is still showing as living at the same address in the Electoral Register for the West Riding of Yorkshire - Parliamentary County of York with the qualifying date of 30 June 1946 and a date, presumably of publication of 15th October 1946. As this is at least 18 months since the death of the subject, my query is how accurate are the electoral registers as a source of information, particularly in the assumption of dates?
Thank you in advance
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I suspect that the answer is that it was just a clerical error, in the sense that no-one cancelled a pre-existing registration for your grandmother.
The wartime arrangements for maintaining the registers of voters (even though there were no actual parliamentary elections prior to the July 1945 general election) were quite complicated and were governed by lots of temporary legislation. Although I can't find an extant copy of it, it appears that the Parliamentary Electors (War-Time Regulations) Act 1943 required that the registers of voters were to be compiled based on the 1939 National Register (the same one that was used for National Identity Cards etc and that we as family historians use today). The Representation of the People Act 1945 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/8-9/5/pdfs/ukpga_19450005_en.pdf) set out that the timetable for compiling the registers was to revert to the pre-war May and October half-yearly qualifying dates, but this system was only intended to come into force once the 1939 National Registration Act had been repealed. I might add, the ROPA 1945 is exceptionally difficult to follow.
Add to that the general disruption and displacement of people due to the bombing and civilian war service, and it is no wonder that the registers may have been somewhat out of date. The main aim of holding the 1945 election was to return the country to a proper democratic basis as soon as possible, and of the resulting Labour landslide victory is seen as evidence of the popular desire to return to normality. It wasn't until the 1948 ROPA that the whole system was given a thorough overhaul.
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Snipped from Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28 Jun 1946
Was your "rellie" on the National Register at 30 Jun?
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Greatly appreciated Andy. So I'm assuming that any electoral registers either before the war or after 1948 can be presumed to be reasonably accurate?
Brian
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hanes, yes she was and thanks for the press cutting
Brian
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Edinburgh Evening News, 16 Aug 1946
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hanes, again thanks.
Brian
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I have come across a case in the mid-1950s where a house was left empty but the electoral register remained "as before" for 2 or 3 years until someone returned the form stating it was empty. It was one of a pair of semis both bought by the same person, who lived in one and used the other to store papers from a business which had recently been sold. The only inhabitant was a guard dog named Moss!
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Interesting Molly. So the moral here is that if the use of a particular register was to be pivotal in one's research results then corroborating evidence should be sought. Note to self.
Thanks
Brian
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In theory the registrar of births, deaths and marriages was supposed to keep the Electoral Registration Officer informed of deaths, but I suspect this also didn't always happen during wartime.
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Western Mail, 15 Aug 1947
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Letters to the Editor tended to refer to the pre war practice of "... door to door enquiry in the spring ..." as a means of maintaining an accurate register.
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"lists are exhibited in local post offices" - they'd struggle to do that nowadays!
Joking aside, thanks very much hanes for your coverage of this issue. it obviously caused controversy at the time and for those of us who were unaware of this - still does.
Many thanks again
Brian
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In past years before it all went online, someone delivered a form and came back for it in the next few weeks. If they never got a reply, they left a note saying where to post it to (supply your own stamp). If they never heard from you, you were removed from the register. This exercise always happened in the holiday month of August. Trying to trace people through the years, it's noticeable that there were often gaps when no election was expected, and they return when there was going to be one. This is so common that when someone is missing, I don't immediately assume they've died or moved away and take care to check a few successive years to see if their name comes back or they're replaced by a new occupier.
I sometimes wonder whether the August problem just applied here or whether it was the same month everywhere. What do other people remember?
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What seems to have happened in practice, at least in some places, is that if there was no reply, the register was left as it was, names were not removed.
The dates were changed at some point, at least by the 1970s. The information was collected in October. The draft register was made available in December, in libraries as well as post offices, and the register came into force on 1 February for 12 months.
It was around 2001 when privacy concerns closed public inspection of the draft and current registers. An appointment was needed to check your own entry. However registers prior to the current year seem to be available in libraries.
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Current registers are available online but do not contain the names of those people who 'opt out' of being on the 'Open Register'.
When I worked in electoral registration late 1990's / early 2000's the canvasser had to knock twice to try and get forms back. They were paid slightly extra if they achieved certain percentages of returns on their district, that was to encourage them to keep trying ;D. The information on the register for forms not returned was often not changed immediately but noted for the next year.
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6 October 1945
I checked Hansard re. the debate on extending the wartime arrangements but this was not recorded. Another paper reported that "Mr Churchill" had not voted in his life " ... through one fault or another ..."