I EXPECT Jeremy Corbyn must have known that his call for donations to help his campaign would exceed a £16,825 cap imposed on all candidates by the Electoral Commission – but I doubt he was expecting the support to be quite so big.

Expenses receipts unearthed by my colleague on our sister paper, Islington Tribune, show that more than £123,000 was raised during the campaign.

The vast majority came in donations of less than £50, from more than 3,500 individuals in total.

The receipts give details of the individual donors and also how expenses were racked up on coffee runs and chocolate crepes.

Donors at the time were told that “all unused money would go toward community projects and ­campaigns”, including “people’s assemblies” which Mr Corbyn described as a “shared, ­democratic space for all local residents in Islington North to discuss the issues affecting our community”.

The donations are currently held by the Corbyn camp’s company, Community Unity Ltd.

Exactly how and where the unspent donations will be distributed remains unclear.

In a statement, Mr Corbyn told me: “This was a grassroots campaign, and I want to reiterate my sincere thanks to every single person who made our victory possible.

Labour’s candidate for the seat, Praful Nargund

“From small donations to mass leafleting sessions, our campaign was run and won by people. We proved that together we achieved more than we can ever do alone.”

It is hard to imagine a single other politician in the country garnering such “grassroots” financial support for a campaign that was launched at short notice, after the veteran MP was banned from standing for the party he had represented for 40 years.

The receipts show how thousands of pounds had to be sent back to potential donors – including £250 returned to George Binette, a former secretary of the Camden Trades Council.

Mr Corbyn had been tipped to lose by political analysts who believed he would not be able to compete without the party machine behind him.

But in a tense and dramatic race to the finish, he claimed victory in the early hours of the morning at the count in the Islington Tennis Centre. Labour’s candidate Praful Nargund lost out by more than 7,000 votes.

Only donors sending more than £50 are named in the election expense documents, publicly available at Islington Town Hall.

There are just over 250 of them – with the single largest coming from the RMT union, £10,000 on June 10.

Rival Labour candidate Mr Nargund spent £14,447 on his bid to win against the long-serving MP in Islington North.

It is not yet possible to see the individual donors to this campaign as the receipts show it as funded through a block donation of nearly £13,000 from the London Labour Party.