Finding soldiers through the 1918 Absent Voters Lists

There was a General Election in Britain in 1918. Details of men in the armed forces who were away from home were named on Absent Voters Lists (see details below and in the article The registration of military voters). These often recorded the man’s regiment, number and rank at the time, as well as his home address. Crucially, in many cases they also give his unit. The lists are not held centrally and are not 100% in existence. They are held at a variety of County Records Offices or local history sections of main libraries of the area where the man lived in 1918. Some have been digitised and made available via Findmypast and Ancestry; some are held at the British Library. If all you know is the soldier’s name but are reasonably certain you know where he lived, this is not a bad place to search.

Extract form the Birmingham Absent Voters List 1918. Birmingham Central Library.
Extract from the Birmingham Absent Voters List 1918. Birmingham Central Library.

Lists known to be freely available online

Lists known to be available for purchase or pay-per-view

Information about other existing lists

Other lists known to be available in libraries/archives

  • Aberdare 1918 list is held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • Anglesey 1918 list is held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • Barnsley 1918 and 1919 are held in Barnsley Archives
  • Birkenhead East is held at Birkenhead Library
  • Brixton in London is available from Lambeth Archives. I am told that they charge £5 to photocopy the relevant person’s entry but will confirm if the person is on the lists free of charge
  • Carnarvon county list 1918 is held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • Darlington. Durham County Record Office advises that this list is at Darlington Town Hall
  • Flintshire lists are held at Flintshire Record Office in Hawarden
  • Fulham 1920 is held at the London Metropolitan Archives
  • Gateshead. Durham County Record Office advises that this list is at Gateshead library
  • Great Yarmouth 1918 and 1919 are held at Norfolk Record Office
  • Hartlepool. Durham County Record Office advises that this list is at Hartlepool library
  • Hastings 1918 is at the East Sussex Record Office
  • Henley 1918 is at the Oxfordshire History Centre
  • Kennington in London: same as Brixton, above
  • King’s Lynn 1919 list is held at Norfolk Record Office
  • Leicester lists are available at the county record centre at Wigston Magna (sadly they do not give regimental details)
  • Lewisham 1918 is held at the London Metropolitan Archives
  • Manchester is held at the Central Library in Manchester
  • Merionethshire 1918 list is held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • Merthyr Tdyfil 1918 list is held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • Monmouthshire (Abertillery, Bedwellty, Ebbw Vale, Monmouth and Pontypool divisions) lists are held by Gwent Archives in Ebbw Vale
  • Newcastle on Tyne. Durham County Record Office advises that this list is at Newcastle Central Library
  • Newport (Monmouthshire) lists for 1918-1919 and 1921-1923 and held in Newport Reference Library
  • Norwich 1918 and 1919 are held at Norfolk Heritage Centre
  • Reading (spring 1923 list) is available on microfiche at Berkshire Record Office
  • Romford Division (Barking, Hornchurch, Romford and Dagenham areas of Essex) lists are held at Essex Record Office. It also holds the county’s South Eastern Division lists
  • Sheffield lists (but only a sample of five pages of 1918) are held at the city’s Local Studies Library
  • Shrewsbury 1919 (but not 1918) is held by Shropshire Archives, along with Ludlow, Oswestry, and Wrekin divisions
  • Somerset lists for 1918 and 1919 are available at the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton
  • Southwark 1919 is held at the London Metropolitan Archives
  • Stockport for 1918-1925 only. Stockport town only, not surrounding area (i.e. not Bredbury, Romiley, etc.) held at Stockport Heritage Library
  • Wandsworth 1918-1920 is held at the London Metropolitan Archives
  • Kennington and Brixton in London are available from Lambeth Archives. I am told that they charge £5 to photocopy the relevant person’s entry but will confirm if the person is on the lists free of charge
  • City of York 1918 and 1919 lists are held in York Central Library

If you know of any more AVLs or are compiling an online version of a list, please contact me and I will add yours to this index.

Known to be missing

Gloucester Archives has confirmed that lists for Gloucester are missing.

Manchester Central Library has confirmed that lists for Chorlton-on-Medlock are missing.

Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre says that there are no existing lists for Bury, Rochdale or Trafford.

Stoke-on-Trent Archives Service has confirmed that the lists for the ‘Potteries’ are missing (some local boundaries were changed in 1922 and this may need some further investigation as to exactly what is missing).

Durham County Record Office advises that the lists for South Shields, Stockton on Tees and Sunderland are “probably missing”.

How the lists were compiled

The voters details for the 1918 election were initially supplied by the next of kin of the household of the soldier to local voter registration officers.  Once this process was completed, the names of those in the army were sent to the Adjutant General’s Department of the War Office, who then arranged to send voting cards to soldiers who were in the United Kingdom and ballot papers to men in France, Flanders and Italy. Men serving in more distant theatres of war were allowed to vote through use of a proxy voting form.

The registration of military voters

The hurried and rather haphazard nature of collecting the original information at home meant that some men were missed out altogether and the details given for others often inaccurate. Nonetheless if a researcher is faced with looking for a man with a common name but without knowledge of any military details, the Absent Voters List can be a valuable resource.