Description:Amongst the papers relating to Lichfield elections in the 1740s and 1750s are a number of documents providing details about the people who voted in the Lichfield elections.
One document concerns the votes of people who had died since the last local election. A column headed ‘Observacons’ in this document tells us about the lives of Lichfield people in the mid eighteenth century. Mr. Adey, a mercer who was friends with Thomas Cobb, is referred to at some length. The document states that Mr. Adey’s heir was ‘entitl’d to a considerable Real Estate within the City and County of Lichfield’, including a number of ‘dwelling houses’. The writer of the document notes ‘I presume the person now in possession will vote for Mr. Vernon or his successor’.
Another man named Joseph Walker had once voted as ‘a Freeman in the Shoemakers Company’. However, Walker had since joined the army which meant by ‘the Resolucon of the House of Commons in the Year 1718’ he could no longer vote in elections.
A man named Thomas Jackson who had recently died had given his Burgage property to a man referred to as ‘Storer’ who was a ‘Joyner in Lichfield’. Unfortunately, Storer had voted against the Gower-Anson candidate Henry Vernon at the last Lichfield election - a dangerous move which looked likely to cost him his property. Indeed, the writer advocates attempts to ‘purchase the Burgage of him’.
To learn more about the role of property in Lichfield elections, click on the image on the left.