Now most people will know that there was a time when few people could vote in elections, but I am always taken aback by just how few that was.
Here in Didsbury, the total population who were over the age of 21 in 1841, was 1,789, but those entitled to cast their vote in Parliamentary elections amounted to just 52, and of course all the 52 were men.
Added to which 30% of those electors, didn’t even live in Didsbury.
Now this I know because of the Poll Books, which are a list of voters entitled to vote by virtue of a property qualification.
They are a wonderful resource, providing the name of each elector, where they lived, the nature of their qualification and the location of that property.
And for good measure, the entry also provides the name of who lived in each property, many of whom were tenants, which extends our knowledge of who was resident in Didsbury in the year the register was compiled.
And that is very important, because apart from the census returns, there are few documents which offer up the names of people who were not either wealthy or in trade.
The first census to record individual names, was the 1841 census and while there are parish records for births deaths and marriages, these can be fragmentary, and early directories, tend only to list the “people of plenty”.
So, with names of even the humblest, it is possible to visit the rate books and search for both owners and tenants, and that will yield how much they paid in rates, as well as the estimated rental value of the property. These rate books were compiled every year and so it is possible to track the movements of an individual tenant or property owner around Didsbury.
And that is particularly useful given that the time between each census was ten years, and many street and trade directories are not inclusive.
There is of course the tithe record, which lists who owned the land, who rented it, its value and it's use. It also came with a map, which makes it easy to plot where people lived, but these were one off exercises.
So, our Poll Books are a fascinating insight in to Didsbury, more so because in an election year they also record how people voted.
This was after all, a time before the secret ballot and how you voted was seen by everyone who attended on the day of the election and was recorded for everyone to read..
Alas our Poll Book dates from 1836, a year when there were no Parliamentary elections, so I cannot find the voting preference of Samuel Bethell who interests me because he was for a time the owner of the Church Inn which sometime after 1855 was renamed the Didsbury Hotel.
He also owned the smaller beer shop known as the Prince Albert, which stood roughly on the corner of Millgate and Wilmslow Road. The Church Inn had a rateable value of £74 which was matched by its near competitor the Old Cock, but was far ahead of the Prince Albert which paid just £14.
That shouldn’t be a surprise given that in the 1850s, the Prince Albert appears to have been run by John Arnold who was also a blacksmith and the beer shop may well have been a secondary venture. So far, he has proved elusive and is not on either the 1841 or ’51 census, and while there is a John Arnold on the Poll Book for 1836, I do not think this is he.
But there are 73 names on the Poll Book which pretty much opens 72 more investigations which in turn may tell us a lot more about Didsbury back in 1836.
And along the way I might also uncover more about Mr. Bethell, who according to one Didsbury historian “acquired squatter’s rights over the space [in front of the Church Inn] by enclosing it with boundary stones sometime between 1821 and 1855 and treating it as his own”. **
In so doing he will have deprived the villagers of an open space, leaving me to reflect that such a dastardly act may also have led him to watering down the beer.
But that may just be one scurrilous accusation too far.
We shall see.
Location Didsbury
Pictures; Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the Didsbury Hotel, formerly the Church Inn, 1860-70 from the Lloyd Collection
*Poll Book, 1836, Didsbury, Southern Division of the County of Lancaster, page 62-63
** A History of Didsbury, Ivor R. Millon, 1969, page 25
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| Didsbury in 1853 |
Added to which 30% of those electors, didn’t even live in Didsbury.
Now this I know because of the Poll Books, which are a list of voters entitled to vote by virtue of a property qualification.
They are a wonderful resource, providing the name of each elector, where they lived, the nature of their qualification and the location of that property.
And for good measure, the entry also provides the name of who lived in each property, many of whom were tenants, which extends our knowledge of who was resident in Didsbury in the year the register was compiled.
 |
| % of electors living in Didsbury in 1836 |
The first census to record individual names, was the 1841 census and while there are parish records for births deaths and marriages, these can be fragmentary, and early directories, tend only to list the “people of plenty”.
So, with names of even the humblest, it is possible to visit the rate books and search for both owners and tenants, and that will yield how much they paid in rates, as well as the estimated rental value of the property. These rate books were compiled every year and so it is possible to track the movements of an individual tenant or property owner around Didsbury.
And that is particularly useful given that the time between each census was ten years, and many street and trade directories are not inclusive.
There is of course the tithe record, which lists who owned the land, who rented it, its value and it's use. It also came with a map, which makes it easy to plot where people lived, but these were one off exercises.
 |
| The Didsbury Hotel, once the Church Inn, circa 1860-70 |
This was after all, a time before the secret ballot and how you voted was seen by everyone who attended on the day of the election and was recorded for everyone to read..
Alas our Poll Book dates from 1836, a year when there were no Parliamentary elections, so I cannot find the voting preference of Samuel Bethell who interests me because he was for a time the owner of the Church Inn which sometime after 1855 was renamed the Didsbury Hotel.
He also owned the smaller beer shop known as the Prince Albert, which stood roughly on the corner of Millgate and Wilmslow Road. The Church Inn had a rateable value of £74 which was matched by its near competitor the Old Cock, but was far ahead of the Prince Albert which paid just £14.
That shouldn’t be a surprise given that in the 1850s, the Prince Albert appears to have been run by John Arnold who was also a blacksmith and the beer shop may well have been a secondary venture. So far, he has proved elusive and is not on either the 1841 or ’51 census, and while there is a John Arnold on the Poll Book for 1836, I do not think this is he.
 |
| Detail of the Didsbury Hotel, 1860-1870 |
And along the way I might also uncover more about Mr. Bethell, who according to one Didsbury historian “acquired squatter’s rights over the space [in front of the Church Inn] by enclosing it with boundary stones sometime between 1821 and 1855 and treating it as his own”. **
In so doing he will have deprived the villagers of an open space, leaving me to reflect that such a dastardly act may also have led him to watering down the beer.
But that may just be one scurrilous accusation too far.
We shall see.
Location Didsbury
Pictures; Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the Didsbury Hotel, formerly the Church Inn, 1860-70 from the Lloyd Collection
*Poll Book, 1836, Didsbury, Southern Division of the County of Lancaster, page 62-63
** A History of Didsbury, Ivor R. Millon, 1969, page 25
The description 'tenant' also usually includes Leaseholders in the rate books. Leaseholders own the property and can buy and sell it within the period of the lease, mine still has 900 years to run, but they do not own the land it stands on and have to pay a ground rent to the landholder hence they are included as tenants.
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