Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1903
Commonwealth Electoral Roll (Queensland) 1903
Electoral rolls are the nearest record Australians have to census listings and hence are extremely important to local, social and family historians.
The Commonwealth roll for Queensland for 1903 - the first since the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901 - provides information on 227,115 electors in Queensland who were registered to vote. Though women were not entitled to vote in Queensland State elections until 1905 women who were British subjects were able to register and vote from 1902 in the Commonwealth elections and many are recorded in this database. There were nine electoral divisions - Brisbane, Capricornia, Darling Downs, Herbert, Kennedy, Maranoa, Moreton, Oxley and Wide Bay.
The following information is recorded for each entry:
Number - the roll for each polling place has sequential numbers for all electors listed on the roll
Surname - Surname of each elector
Given name - Christian names of each elector at full length
Title - usually jun., sen. or similar
Place of living - This field may include a full street and town address, just a street address, just a town address, a property name, or other description
Occupation - recorded exactly as entered on the list
Gender - nominally M (male) or F (female) though in some cases the field has been left blank and in one case recorded as E.
Polling Place and Division - These fields identify the roll on which the electors were registered. Many Polling Places were remote and had few electors (for example, Piper Island Lightship had only 6 electors).
