Harrow (pre-1965)

[greenhert]

There is a great elections website out there for the London Borough of Harrow (which incidentally, was the only one to be incorporated into Greater London unchanged):

www.harrow-elections.co.uk/

It gives excellent detail and description of elections there dating back as far as 1894 (1885 for parliamentary constituencies) 

[finsobruce]

Jan 2, 2017 13:01:33 GMT greenhert said:

There is a great elections website out there for the London Borough of Harrow (which incidentally, was the only one to be incorporated into Greater London unchanged):

www.harrow-elections.co.uk/

It gives excellent detail and description of elections there dating back as far as 1894 (1885 for parliamentary constituencies) 

Indeed. This is maintained by our very own ColinJ ......

[ColinJ]

Jan 2, 2017 13:03:45 GMT finsobruce said:

Jan 2, 2017 13:01:33 GMT greenhert said:

There is a great elections website out there for the London Borough of Harrow (which incidentally, was the only one to be incorporated into Greater London unchanged):

www.harrow-elections.co.uk/

It gives excellent detail and description of elections there dating back as far as 1894 (1885 for parliamentary constituencies) 

Indeed. This is maintained by our very own ColinJ ......

Happy New Year everyone!

There have been no updates to the site since about September. My ISP (1-and-1) changed the package I was using. I know it sounds wimpish, but I've been too scared to try any editing since, in case I do irreparable harm! (A shame, as I have been given a clutch of 1960s election leaflets, some of which will be new additions to the site once scanned and uploaded.)

[ColinJ]

Please note that my web site has undergone major changes. After many many hours re-designing and refining the site I decided it was time to take the plunge, so it went live at 4pm this afternoon. The need to make changes to the site was prompted by my ISP no longer supporting the user 'package' that I previously used.

On the PLUS side, the site is now a lot less cluttered and probably easier to navigate around. With regards to images and election literature, each election candidate now has their own distinct page where the links to the images are set out.

On the NEGATIVE side, it seems to be impossible to 'hide' filetype logos, file names and file sizes. This does mean that any visitor to the site probably has to work slightly harder to obtain the information they seek, needing an extra 'click' onto the file name. Another downside, I suspect, will be that I will pay more for the privilege of using the new package.

I have had to set up hundreds of new links to various new pages: if any broken links are spotted please let me know. Additionally, any comments - hopefully constructive (!) - are very welcome.

[Deleted]

Mar 12, 2017 16:17:52 GMT ColinJ said:

Please note that my web site has undergone major changes. After many many hours re-designing and refining the site I decided it was time to take the plunge, so it went live at 4pm this afternoon. The need to make changes to the site was prompted by my ISP no longer supporting the user 'package' that I previously used.

On the PLUS side, the site is now a lot less cluttered and probably easier to navigate around. With regards to images and election literature, each election candidate now has their own distinct page where the links to the images are set out.

On the NEGATIVE side, it seems to be impossible to 'hide' filetype logos, file names and file sizes. This does mean that any visitor to the site probably has to work slightly harder to obtain the information they seek, needing an extra 'click' onto the file name. Another downside, I suspect, will be that I will pay more for the privilege of using the new package.

I have had to set up hundreds of new links to various new pages: if any broken links are spotted please let me know. Additionally, any comments - hopefully constructive (!) - are very welcome.

Thank you ColinJ. If only there was someone like you in every council area of the land (in terms of providing us with old election results). When I enquired with Bradford MDC, they just referred me to the Elections Centre which virtually everyone on this forum already knows about. However, hullenedge has been very helpful around my neck of the woods with this sort of thing.

[ColinJ]

Some significant modifications have occurred to my site.

1. I have discovered that my collection of images of election leaflets etc can be displayed directly on the web page. (Before I only placed the file on the page, leaving the viewer to 'click' to open the image.) This change has I'm sure improved accessibility and appearance. Click here for an example of the new arrangement.

I have made all the necessary changes except for images in the 2002-2020 section. I hope to complete this over the next couple of weeks.

2. I have significantly changed the section relating to 1894-1933.  Many extra details have been added and the general value of the whole thing improved, I hope.  The improvements could only be executed because the 'lockdown' presented me with the time and opportunity; finsobruce encouraged me to take out a subscription to the British Newspaper Archive, and this was worthwhile despite some gaps in the availability of the Harrow Observer on the site.  Free home access to Ancestry (thanks to Shropshire Libraries!) allowed for a lot of checking of candidate names and electorate figures etc, as there were links to the various Registers of Electors held by the London Metropolitan Archives.

There are two completely new appendices.  Appendix W, titled Names of Candidates: F.C. Gough - An Unusual Case, looks at a certain Frederick Charles Gough, a candidate who couldn't make up his mind as to the order of his forenames.  Possibly a small matter, but incredibly frustrating for the researcher 100 years later trying to work out what's going on.

The second new appendix, Appendix Z (!!!) is titled Discovering Old Boundaries.  It is rather technical in nature and possibly just of interest to people knowing Harrow intimately; it amounts to 17 pages and leads the reader through how to find some of the unexpected and (from a contemporary point of view) now well-hidden boundaries from 1894.  I am pleased with how the maps have reproduced.  Davıd Boothroyd alerted me to the 'zoomable' OS maps available at the National Library of Scotland -- I think the appendix would have been impossible to compile without access to the maps.

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 8, 2020 15:00:01 GMT ColinJ said:

The second new appendix, Appendix Z (!!!) is titled Discovering Old Boundaries.  It is rather technical in nature and possibly just of interest to people knowing Harrow intimately; it amounts to 17 pages and leads the reader through how to find some of the unexpected and (from a contemporary point of view) now well-hidden boundaries from 1894.

Fascinating!

In transcribing the 1951 Whitby register I disovered a property that had been registered twice, Fred & Alice Booth are at Glensyde, Upgang Road and also Glensyde, Valley Road - which is the same house on the corner of both roads. Both roads were in the same polling district, so I think if the electors tried to vote twice it would have been noticed by polling staff. I only spotted it because on the register Upgang Road is immediately followed by Valley Road, and the duplicated electors are only 9 places apart.

[ColinJ]

Oct 8, 2020 15:51:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

In transcribing the 1951 Whitby register I discovered a property that had been registered twice, Fred & Alice Booth are at Glensyde, Upgang Road and also Glensyde, Valley Road - which is the same house on the corner of both roads. Both roads were in the same polling district, so I think if the electors tried to vote twice it would have been noticed by polling staff. I only spotted it because on the register Upgang Road is immediately followed by Valley Road, and the duplicated electors are only 9 places apart.

Was this error a one-off and corrected by the time the '52 register was issued?

One thing that I have found worrying is that many of the errors in the Harrow / Hendon registers in the mid- to late-1930s were repeated year after year.  I have even lost sleep about this, which is obviously ridiculous. 

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 10, 2020 15:26:18 GMT ColinJ said:

Oct 8, 2020 15:51:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

In transcribing the 1951 Whitby register I discovered a property that had been registered twice, Fred & Alice Booth are at Glensyde, Upgang Road and also Glensyde, Valley Road - which is the same house on the corner of both roads. Both roads were in the same polling district, so I think if the electors tried to vote twice it would have been noticed by polling staff. I only spotted it because on the register Upgang Road is immediately followed by Valley Road, and the duplicated electors are only 9 places apart.

Was this error a one-off and corrected by the time the '52 register was issued?

I'm not sure as I've been stepping through in ten-year steps as a proxy for the census, and I haven't got that far in the 1961 or 1971 registers yet 'cos the Records Office has been closed since March.

I'm getting withdrawal symptoms, I want to be in the Records Office transcribing paperwork. I've not had a fix for seven months!!!!

A friend has the 1881 census scanned in, so I'll have to post him a handful of USB sticks to get copies.

[ColinJ]

Anyone who has visited the Old Councils forum recently will be aware that I have been researching Kingsbury Urban District Council, arguably the most dysfunctional local authority in Britain prior to the Great War.

I am pleased to report that my efforts have now been fully incorporated in my Harrow Elections web site.

For the election results, go here and click on the appropriate file for either the 1894-1918 or 1919-1933 results.

For Chairmen, go here and click on Appendix A. Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen for Kingsbury are shown in the pdf as the third of the three urban district councils.

For elections from Kingsbury to the Middlesex County Council or the Hendon Union Board of Guardians, go here  and click on Appendix J or K, respectively. (It may also be necessary to consult Appendix H for a reminder of the issues surrounding MCC electoral division boundaries in the area.)

An index of the Kingsbury UDC candidates has been compiled and is available at and by clicking on the appropriate file.  A new feature of this index is the inclusion (where known) of the candidate's description, i.e. their rank, profession, or occupation.  I have extended this practice to the indexes for Harrow-on-the-Hill UDC, Wealdstone UDC and Hendon RDC candidates.

The purists might argue that including Kingsbury in a site devoted to Harrow elections is a bit spurious.  I would respond that information about the Urban District is too outrageous and "fantastic" (as in the sense "grotesque") to exclude.  And anyway, a portion of the old Kingsbury UDC area was transferred to Harrow (from Brent) in April 1994, so it is only right to include it!

[Pete Whitehead]

The interesting thing there is the rapid expansion of the electorate from the mid-20s onwards accompanied by the staticness of the numerical Labour vote. Part of that is due to lower turnout but even so they were barely getting more votes in 1932 than in 1926 with the electorate having expanded eightfold over that period. I'm trying to think what kind of areas would have been there before the huge expansion of the late 20s and I guess it was largely the pretty grotty area around the Hyde, hence why Labour were competitive in the early part of the period but got totally left behind by the new developments (my paternal grandparents were part of this expansion as they bought a new house in Kingsbury in 1929 where they lived up until the 1990s)

[ColinJ]

Nov 3, 2021 12:03:36 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

The interesting thing there is the rapid expansion of the electorate from the mid-20s onwards accompanied by the staticness of the numerical Labour vote. Part of that is due to lower turnout but even so they were barely getting more votes in 1932 than in 1926 with the electorate having expanded eightfold over that period. I'm trying to think what kind of areas would have been there before the huge expansion of the late 20s and I guess it was largely the pretty grotty area around the Hyde, hence why Labour were competitive in the early part of the period but got totally left behind by the new developments (my paternal grandparents were part of this expansion as they bought a new house in Kingsbury in 1929 where they lived up until the 1990s)

I think the Roe Green Garden Village estate may be the answer to your query. Commissioned by the Office of Works in 1916, it was to house aircraft workers, particularly with a view to war work at Hendon Aerodrome. Labour candidates in the early 1920s were often engineers, aircraft inspectors and so on. This area later became 'swamped' by new Metroland type development in the late 20s and early 30s.

Labour's next important success in Kingsbury was in 1934 by which time it had been re-adsorbed in Wembley UD, when a seat was captured in the new Fryent ward.

[Pete Whitehead]

Nov 3, 2021 13:18:12 GMT ColinJ said:

Nov 3, 2021 12:03:36 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

The interesting thing there is the rapid expansion of the electorate from the mid-20s onwards accompanied by the staticness of the numerical Labour vote. Part of that is due to lower turnout but even so they were barely getting more votes in 1932 than in 1926 with the electorate having expanded eightfold over that period. I'm trying to think what kind of areas would have been there before the huge expansion of the late 20s and I guess it was largely the pretty grotty area around the Hyde, hence why Labour were competitive in the early part of the period but got totally left behind by the new developments (my paternal grandparents were part of this expansion as they bought a new house in Kingsbury in 1929 where they lived up until the 1990s)

I think the Roe Green Garden Village estate may be the answer to your query. Commissioned by the Office of Works in 1916, it was to house aircraft workers, particularly with a view to war work at Hendon Aerodrome. Labour candidates in the early 1920s were often engineers, aircraft inspectors and so on. This area later became 'swamped' by new Metroland type development in the late 20s and early 30s.

Labour's next important success in Kingsbury was in 1934 by which time it had been re-adsorbed in Wembley UD, when a seat was captured in the new Fryent ward.

It's what I said

[Pete Whitehead]

ColinJ said:

The 1934 Election - How the Kingsbury wards voted

Source: Hendon and Finchley Times, 9 March and 30 March 1934.


Chalkhill ward (2 members)

John W.G. Snook (RA) 441 (publisher)
Sydney Harris (RA) 434 (publicity manager)

Horatio M. Liversedge (Lab) 189 (master builder)
James Day (Lab) 187 (consulting engineer)


Fryent ward (2 members)

Frank P. Crook (Lab) 486 (civil servant)
Edwin H. Everett (RA) 464 (solicitors' managing clerk)

Elmer T. Ashman (RA) 459 (headmaster)
Ram Singh Nehra (Lab) 451 (solicitor, Priviy Council agent)


The Hyde ward (4 members)

Albert E. Mason (RA) 705 (accountant)
Avery W. Clarke (RA) 682 (designer and engraver)
Mark Levy (RA) 653 (local government officer)
Charles Thurston (RA) 622 (official, LPTB)

Ms. Mary F. Lloyd (Lab) 96 (school teacher)
Mrs. Elsie L. Welsh (Lab) 51 (married woman)


Roe Green ward (2 members)

Athwell Rowbottam (RA) 454 (dairy manager)
Harold J. Soar (RA) 445 (foreman)

Mrs. Jenny E. Fordham (Lab) 240 (married woman)
Leonard G. Rule (Lab) 218 (journalist)

This is posted from the other site (where for some reason I am unable to login to my account to post). Do you have any map of these wards or have some idea of what their boundaries were?

[ColinJ]

Nov 4, 2021 6:54:05 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

This is posted from the other site (where for some reason I am unable to login to my account to post). Do you have any map of these wards or have some idea of what their boundaries were?

Unfortunately no map. However, if you look at an attachment on the other site (go to the bottom of the page) and click on the third tab, you will find a listing of which roads were in each ward. Those roads transferred to Harrow in 1994 are shown in bold and are from The Hyde ward. The listings were made from either the 1934 or 1935 Register of Electors, I can't remember which.