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  1. #11
    Newcomer to Brit-Gen
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    Proxy Elector sounds a possibility - I will have to look at the legislation to see whether that was possible in 1918, but the term does not appear in the printed list of abbreviations, but I suppose could reflect such a factor if the law ONLY permitted it to be set up after the register was compiled.

    The link to guidance above does not help I fear. Here are snips showing typical entries:











    I should add that the style of script - only two hands I think also supports the view that the entries were probably made during the validity of the register.
    Last edited by keithmroberts; 15-01-2017 at 9:41 AM. Reason: second image

  2. #12
    Name well known on Brit-Gen
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    I presume the address is Ernest Road Buckland.

    Could it be age related?

    20 Samuel James Newton year of birth 1860

    34 Stephen Henry Crouch year of birth 1847

  3. #13
    Newcomer to Brit-Gen
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    Yes, that particular extract is from Ernest Road. I can't think that there was anything in the 1918 Act about the age of voters other than the qualifying options, 19, 21 and 30 so why would staff dealing with the electoral register want to identify older residents. Overall the area was weighted towards the younger end of the age spectrum, with large numbers of Petty Officers and Leading Seamen who had used their long service gratuities to fund deposits on small houses built between 1880 and 1900. I will probably end up researching at least 10 of the PE marked electors in some depth if I can't get any definite answers in the hope of finding some strong common denominators.

    That will have to wait a while though as I am pretty swamped with the main aspects of the project and we have only a few weeks to finalise our core material and prepare an exhibition.

  4. #14
    Name well known on Brit-Gen
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    I had wondered if these persons were connected to the PCC or 'lay members of the Parish Council who were entitled to vote in the Parish elections!

    Post the names on the site, let the enthusiastic seekers of this forum help you in this project!

    Some of us, no names mentioned, but I can think of at least 5 others........ prefer researching to the more mundane jobs in our lives such as house work / decorating / gardening etc

  5. #15
    thewideeyedowl
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    Hi again...

    This is a snip from the Family Search wiki about Electoral Rolls:

    "Those absent in the armed forces when the 1918 and subsequent lists were compiled are shown separately at the end of the polling district in which they normally lived in an Absent Voters' List. They could vote either by post or proxy."

    You can find the full wiki entry here: https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Ele...ers_in_England.

    So perhaps PE stood for 'Postal Elector' or, as suggested earlier, 'Proxy Elector'?

    Owl

  6. #16
    Newcomer to Brit-Gen
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    Hi

    More research today. I counted and listed the voters with PE manuscript amendments, there were actually 39 in a register of just over 13k. They were in some cases couples (with the wife qualifying as HO), and some single, all the men R or I think O, none were NM voters, and none were marked as a for absent voters.
    I checked a couple of other Portsmouth 1918 registers and there were identical PE markings in similar quantities. The I turned to the 1919 (Spring) register for the ward. Of the 39 voters marked PE in 1918, 38 were still on the register with the same qualifications, (the missing one had died early in 1919), but there were no notations at all on that register, or on one other that I checked. The 1919 bound volume had a signed flimsy pasted at the front about the number of voters to one that appeared in the 1918 volume, and both were signed by a responsible official.
    I think that rules out postal voting questions as there were very many in Divisions I and II. Apart from lodgers, and possibly billeted men so many naval personnel had bought or rented homes in the neighbourhood. The register analysis will have to wait until the transcription is completed, but for the area covered by the main part of our research we ahve something like .8 of a man who served per house, in a compact area of about 1200 houses.

    We may never get to the end of this one.

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