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"The Poll Book of the Electors who Voted at the Contested Election for Newcastle Upon Tyne, on 6th and 7th January 1835. Taken from a List Certified by the Sheriff, John Mellar Chapman, Esq.", was printed and published at Pilgrim Street, Newcastle in 1835 and records the votes polled in the General Election of that year for candidates returned for Newcastle. Four candidates stood in the 1835 General Election for Newcastle, namely Sir Michael White Ridley, Bart., John Hodgson, Esq., William Ord, Esq., and James Aytoun, Esq. The candidates returned were William Ord, Esq., with 1,844 votes and Sir M. W. Ridley, Bart., with 1,509 votes. Ridley had represented Newcastle as a Member of Parliament for some twenty-four years and was the head of the Banking House of Sir M. W. Ridley, Bigge & Co., while also being active in the coal trade and glass manufacturing business. Ridley died the following year in 1836, aged 58 years, when his seat was taken-up by his son. The winner of the election was the interesting William Henry Ord. Born in 1781, 1835 was the first year that Ord was elected as Member of Parliament for Newcastle although he had already sat as an MP for several other constituencies by this time. Ord, who had been granted the freedom of Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1808, held his seat until 1852. A left-wing Whig, Ord was a follower of Samuel Whitbread, the brewer, and radical Member of Parliament who advocated religious and civil rights as well as the abolition of slavery and a national education system. In 1835, 3,107 voters polled their vote in the Newcastle election. The Poll Book records the names of all those freemen or householders who cast their vote, the candidate or candidates for whom they voted, as well as their address. The usefulness of Poll Books in general is often overlooked. As an item of record, the 1835 Poll Book contains the names of more than 3,100 merchants, traders and gentlemen resident in Newcastle and as such probably includes more individuals and their place of residence than any contemporary street or trades directory for the town from this period. Republished here as a fully-searchable Download, the Newcastle Poll Book for 1835 containing the names, addresses of more than 3,100 residents of Newcastle must appeal to anyone with a family or historical interest in the town of Newcastle.

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