PRINTED REGISTERS OF COUNTY AND BOROUGH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS

1920 - 1940

Complete for the four electoral divisions of the county, namely, Nuneaton, Rugby, Tamworth and Warwick and Leamington.

Includes Coventry borough, 1922/3 - 1927/8 and 1931/2 and Birmingham borough (fourteen divisions) 1922/3 - 1927/8 and 1933/4 and 1934/5.

1945 - 1948

Tamworth, 1945 (before boundary revision)

Complete for the five electoral divisions of Nuneaton, Rugby, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield and Warwick and Leamington.

1949 - 1954

Complete for the six electoral divisions of Nuneaton, Rugby, Solihull, Stratford, Sutton Coldfield and Warwick and Leamington.

1955 - 1974

Meriden: complete

Nuneaton: lacks 1971 - 1973

Rugby: complete

Solihull: lacks 1967, 1969 - 1974

Stratford: complete

Sutton Coldfield: lacks 1959 - 1962, 1967, 1969,1971 - 1974

Warwick and Leamington: complete.

1975 - 1993 (by district): Some of these registers are held on Microfiche.

Meriden [North Warwickshire]: see North Warwickshire

Meriden [Solihull]: 1980 only

North Warwickshire: lacks1990

Nuneaton and Bedworth: lacks 1989 - 1991

Rugby: lacks 1993

Stratford: lacks 1975, 1976, 1993

Warwick and Leamington: complete

Dates

There are three principal dates associated with each register, 'the qualifying date' by which a voter establishes the right to vote in a particular constitutency, the date on which the register comes into force, and the date on which the register is replaced by a new one, normally after twelve months. These dates can spread across three calendar years. In the guide which follows, we have tried to give the availability of surviving registers according to the year in which they came into force. There are many purposes, including genealogy, however, for which the qualifying date is the most meaningful, because it purports to establish ownership, occupation or residence at a particular address on or by that date- many voters have already died or moved when the register comes into force. The changes to the dates that have occurred since 1832 are shown in the table opposite. These were not always rigorously applied. The 1832 register was brought in on 1 November in several constitutencies, and the East Sussex register for 1841 started on 31 October.

This index attempts to show in which electoral divisions or contituencies parishes and hamlets lay at different times. After World War 1 the use of parishes as the unit starts to break down in the areas near Birmingham, Coventry and Tamworth, and to a lesser extent in the other towns and their suburbs. One parish may be placed into several wards, which in the course of time may change both their names and boundaries. No consistent attempt has been made to trace the history of such parishes, which could only be done where street indexes of some complexity need to be provided and this is outside the scope of this list.

It should be noted that the electoral registers held here until 1915 list those electors eligible to vote for county members only: hence the lists for Birmingham, Coventry, Tamworth and Warwick do not include those eligible to vote for those boroughs, with the exception of the borough electoral registers for Warwick and, later, Leamington, included in this list.

In the period after 1915 the county did not collect electoral registers for the Birmingham and Coventry constituencies, with a few exceptions. The years covered are noted in the index by reference to the wards and electoral divisions in the case of Birmingham and by ward in the case of Coventry. Parts of Warwickshire transferred to Coventry borough in the 20th century remained in the county constituencies for some time afterwards until there was a further re-drawing of electoral boundaries. This also obtains with parishes which moved in or out of the county. Many of the parishes moved into Warwickshire from Worcestershire or Gloucestershire much earlier in the century do not appear in the Warwickshire registers until the Stratford constituency was formed in 1950. For details of changes in constituencies see notes on Printed Registers of Parliamentary Electors, which includes a digest of the CRO's holdings, at QS 113.

From 1832 - 1915 there were county and borough constituencies, and the electorate needed a property qualification in order to have the vote: see separate page entitled Voting Rights. From 1832 - 1885 the county was divided into two electoral divisions, Northern and Southern; from 1886 - 1915 there were four divisions; the Northern (Tamworth) North-Eastern (Nuneaton), South Eastern (Rugby) and South Western (Stratford). In addition there were the Parliamentary Boroughs of Birmingham, Coventry, Tamworth and Warwick. Although lists of voters living in these boroughs are included in the county registers, they comprise those electors who were qualified to vote for the county members only; separate registers were kept by the boroughs for those qualified to elect borough members.

The county registers are complete except for the Northern Division in 1837/8, the Southern Division in 1856/7 and for the whole of 1906. The reference no. is QS/113, with the year and electoral division required.

As regards the borough franchise or right to vote, printed registers and burgess rolls are held for Warwick from 1837 - 1859/60 and from 1879/80 - 1884/5 and registers for the Parliamentary Borough of Warwick and Leamington from 1885/6 - 1915. The reference is CR/1618/W35/1-75; the list following this explanation should be consulted for the reference number to individual registers.

The Representation of the People Act, 1918, established four county electoral divisions, Nuneaton, Rugby, Tamworth and Warwick and Leamington. Registers held for these divisions, some of which were formerly deposited as CR/1500, CR/1543 and CR/1995, are now arranged by year and can be produced by simply requesting the year and constituency required. There are also registers for fourteen divisions of Birmingham Parliamentary Borough for 1922/3 -1927/8 and for 1933/4 and 1934/5, and for the Paliamentary Borough of Coventry for 1922/3 - 1927/8 and 1931/2: those for the 1920's are kept with the series of Juror's Lists (reference QS/76/14 - 19); the rest can be produced simply by requesting the year and division required. 1920 - present

Under the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944, the divisions of Nuneaton and Tamworth were reconstituted as Nuneaton, Solihull and Sutton Coldfield. The Representation of the People Act, 1948, again revised the divisions and established six constituencies: Nuneaton, Rugby, Solihull, Stratford, Sutton Coldfield, and Warwick and Leamington. In 1955, following the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1949, the Nuneaton and Sutton Coldfield constituencies were reorganised and in place of them the borough of Sutton Coldfield with the Erdington ward of Birmingham became a borough constituency and a new constituency of Meriden was established, the Nuneaton constituency being reconstituted. On local government reorganisation in 1974, the districts assumed responsibility for compiling the electoral registers and in general only registers for the new county are held from that date. Electors are then recorded by district rather than by constituency.

URBAN CONSTITUENCIES

From 1832 to 1918, in addition to the two (from 1885 four) county constituencies, there were separate constituencies for Aston, Birmingham, Coventry and Warwick (from 1885 Warwick and Leamington). The Warwick/Warwick and Leamington Electoral Registers are in CR 1618/W35: for the whereabouts of Aston, Birmingham, and Coventry Electoral Registers see the list in Gibson and Rogers "Electoral Registers since 1832" at D 324 Gib. (p).