CHESHIRE-L Archives

Archiver > CHESHIRE > 2011-11 > 1321216762


From: "Christine Benson" <>
Subject: [CHS] Electoral roll and Bribery
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:39:22 -0000


Hi All,

On looking for my David BIRCHENOUGH of Macclesfield on the electoral roll on
FMP I found a lot of pages for 1880, most of them just repeats, and they are
not the normal pages but a large list of voters names and against each one
it says they have been found guilty of bribery. On looking on Google I found
that in 1880 55% of voters in Macclesfield took bribes. Strictly speaking,
the general public is not guilty of bribery but of being bribed. Seemingly
at least some of the bribers were charged but it is not clear if anything
happened to the general population as a result of this, given that they were
guilty of bribery according to the authorities. The borough lost its right
to representation in parliament.

These pages continue until 1889 when the normal electoral roll reappears. It
is not clear why the inordinate number of repeats (there seem to have been 2
David's at the time which exacerbates it). Nor does there seem to be an
"ordinary" entry for 1880 unless it is lost amongst the others.

I am not sure if the repeats are an error but I would have thought so and
not sure how to report it as the system doesn't seem to fit the error I am
trying to report.

Christine


This thread: