City of Coventry, poll books

Description

Printed poll books (including out voters) for the city of Coventry, 1790 and 1802; bound together as a single volume and copiously annotated, mainly with dates of death of the electors (to 1843), but including polling figures for elections and by-elections in miscellaneous constituencies, 1826-41, and a few other jottings. According to inscriptions by James Watson, dated 1875, these were the polling books of his grandfather, William Wilberforce Bird (1758-1836), MP for Coventry from 1796 to 1802. Bird was indeed a candidate in both elections, although it is not clear whether Bird actually owned these two copies. As Bird emigrated to the Cape of Good Hope in 1808, and did not return, the annotations cannot be his. The volumes were given to Watson on a visit to Coventry in 1875, and subsequently became part of the papers of the Gregory-Hood family of Stivichall (see DR 10).