Mar
1820
liverpool
Contested
GENERAL ELECTION
In the general election of Mar 1820, 2167 people voted. There were 4 candidates, with George Canning I & Isaac Gascoyne elected.
Poll book data from:
Citation: The poll for the election… (Liverpool: J. Gore, 1820)
Source: John Sims (ed.), A Handlist of British Parliamentary Poll Books (Leicester, 1984); Jeremy Gibson and Colin Rogers (eds.), Poll Books, 1696–1872: A Directory of Holdings in Great Britain (4th edn., Bury, 2008).
Timeline & Key Statistics
Contexts & Remarks
- In 1820 four candidates progressed to the poll: George Canning, Isaac Gascoyne, Peter Crompton, and Thomas Leyland. Canning, a liberal Tory minister in the Liverpool Administration, stood on the interest of a faction of Canningite independents, while Gascoyne was the corporation's nominee. The Whigs struggled to find suitable candidates and ultimately settled on two men who stood jointly: Crompton, a radical, and Leyland.
- Canning and Gascoyne led the poll from day one with a formidable lead, and the Whigs retired from the contest on 15 March with 2,173 freemen having voted. This represented 62% of Liverpool's estimated electorate of 3,500.
- The poll book is arranged so that 'Vote 1', on the left-hand side of the votes column, indicate at whose bar the vote was cast (i.e. if an elector's votes reads 'C G' it indicates that they voted for Canning and Gascoyne at the bar of Canning.
People & Places
Poll Book
Below is a digitised version of the poll book for this election:
