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Introduction to the 1780-84 Poll Book

The 1780-84 Poll Book

The 1780-84 Poll Book is a record of the voting in the Newcastle Election of 1780 with additional manuscript notes from the 1784 election, made by the agent for Andrew Stoney Bowes of Gibside in the 1784 Parliamentary election for Newcastle upon Tyne.

It has been digitised and is now on a separate part of this website. The title page is here, and from that you can move through the book to see all of the following pages. Follow this link for more information about it, and this one for the contents page, which includes details of the search function. (Please note; copyright in this set of digital images belongs to the Society).

The Poll Book has 58 double pages, but only the right-hand page of each pair has anything printed on it. The canvass for the 1784 election is written on both left- and right-hand pages, but usually with a lot more on the right, including additional names for new voters since the 1780 election. A few left-hand pages do not have any annotations.

There is also a CD available, with both a copy of this Poll Book (without notes), and of the 1777 Poll Book (with notes) on it. The handwriting on the two annotated copies seems to be the same, and may be that of the agent for candidate 'Stoney' Bowes. To buy a copy of the CD, go to the website for  Archive CD Books Ireland and put 'Newcastle Poll Books' into their search engine. However, so far as we know no-one else has done a complete transcription of a poll-book with all its notes. We can provide the full contents in an Excel spreadsheet to bona-fide researchers, which will allow for extensive analysis; please e-mail the website editor with enquiries about this.

 

In the future, don’t forget your past