Were your ancestors Tories or Whigs? In our latest ‘Trading Stories, Working Lives’ article we trawl through over 60 years’ worth of poll books and newspaper reports – at a time when votes cast were in the public domain – trying to seek out any political patterns and affinities among members of the Cave family of St Mary’s, Leicester.
Along the way, there are tales of excessive election expenses, sleazy tactics and ‘fake news’. The techniques and technology may have changed over the past 200 years, but in many ways the controversies are still familiar today.
Download the full story here: Voting patterns in the Cave family, 1800-1865
You might also like to take a look at the other articles in our Trading Stories, Working Lives series:
William and Samuel Whittle, yeoman farmers and rabbit warreners of Charnwood
Nathaniel Orringe, miller and baker of Shepshed
Tom Crew, football referee and broadcaster
Samuel Taylor, beadle of Loughborough
Thomas Norman, elastic web weaver
John W Barker & Son, painters and decorators
Mary Ann Norman, Victorian laundress of Paradise Place
John Collins, Victorian fishmonger and game dealer
John and George Firn, monumental masons
Polkey boatmen of Loughborough