House of Assembly of South Africa Volksraad van Suid-Afrika
Coat of arms
Type
Type	Lower house (1910–1981) Unicameral (1981–1984) White representative house (1984–1994)
History
Established	1910
Disbanded	1994
Succeeded by	National Assembly
Elections
Voting system	First-past-the-post
First election	15 September 1910
Last election	6 September 1989
Meeting place
House of Assembly Chamber Houses of Parliament Cape Town Cape Province, South Africa

TheHouse of Assembly (known inAfrikaans as theVolksraad, or "People's Council") was thelower house of theParliament of South Africa from 1910 to 1981, thesole parliamentary chamber between 1981 and 1984, and latterly the white representative house of theTricameral Parliament from 1984 to 1994, when it was replaced by the currentNational Assembly. Throughout its history, it was composed exclusively of white members who were elected to office predominantly bywhite citizens, though until 1960 and 1970, respectively, some Black Africans and Coloureds in theCape Province voted under a restricted form of suffrage.

The old House of Assembly chamber was severely damaged in afire in January 2022.^[1]

The members were elected byfirst-past-the-post voting insingle-member electoral divisions. Following the abolition of theSenate in 1981, the membership of the House of Assembly was increased included 12 additional members, of whom four were appointed by theState President and eight were elected by the directly elected members.^[2] The elected additional members were chosen by proportional representation, by means of thesingle transferable vote.^[3]

TheSouth Africa Act 1909 provided that the franchise in each province should be the same as that in the corresponding colony before the Union, until altered by the Union Parliament. The Act includedentrenching clauses, providing that black and coloured voters could only be removed from the common voters roll in the Cape of Good Hope, by legislation passed by a two-thirds majority by both houses of Parliament in joint session.^[4]

The franchise, in all parts of the Union, was initially limited to men over the age of 21. White women were enfranchised in 1929 and the remaining property and income qualifications affecting white men were abolished in 1930.^[5] Following the passing of theElectoral Law Amendment Act in 1958, the voting age for whites was reduced to 18.^[6] There were some additional qualifications and disqualifications which varied between provinces.

The voters in the Orange Free State, Transvaal and South West Africa had to be qualified white people, throughout the whole period when those areas were represented in the House of Assembly.

The Cape of Good Hope had a franchise based on property and wage qualifications, open to people of all races. At the time of theNational Convention in 1908, which drafted the terms of what became the South Africa Act, "22,784 Native and Coloured persons out of a total of 152,221 electors" were entitled to vote in Cape elections.

From 1930, the traditional Cape franchise only affected non-white electors. The 1929 and 1930 extensions of white voting rights were not granted to the non-white majority of the population.

Until 1937, a small number of blacks in theCape Province were included on the common voters' roll. Under the Representation of Natives Act (1936), three white members were elected to represent black voters in the province, with the voters' roll being limited to only 11 000.^[7]In 1960, these seats were abolished.^[8]

Similarly the coloured voters in Cape Province were removed from the common (or general roll), under theSeparate Representation of Voters Act 1951, although as the Act was challenged during theColoured vote constitutional crisis and not completely enforced until the later 1950s, the last year to see non-whites participate in a general election wasin 1953. Coloured electors complying with qualifications were subsequently given four white MPs between 1958 and 1970. These seats were abolished in 1968 through theSeparate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968, enacted on behalf of Prime MinisterB. J. Vorster. This removed all political representation for non-whites in South Africa;Indians had never had any parliamentary representation.

Natal had a theoretically non-racial franchise, which was similar to (but different in detail) from the property and income based franchise of the Cape. In practice, few non-white electors ever qualified to vote under it. It was estimated, in 1908, that "200 non-Europeans out of a total of 22,786 electors had secured franchise rights".^[9]

In 1935, there was one black elector in Natal. He retained the general roll franchise when the Cape black voters lost it.^[10]

In 1949, the South West Africa Affairs Amendment Act extended parliamentary representation toSouth West Africa's white minority, who elected six MPs to the House of Assembly.^[11] They were first elected in 1950, with the territory being represented in the South African Parliament until 1977.^[12] South West Africa's representation in the South African Parliament was abolished in 1977 to pave the way for independence for the territory.^[13] However, this would not occur until 1990.^[14]

By contrast,Walvis Bay was transferred back to theCape Province, thereby making it anexclave.^[15] From 1980, it formed part of theGreen Point constituency inCape Town, before becoming a separate constituency in 1982.^[16]

In theTricameral Parliament, the House of Assembly (by this time numbering 178 members) was retained as the Whites-only chamber while theHouse of Representatives andHouse of Delegates were designated toColoureds andAsians respectively.

Abbreviations and notes:

• General roll electoral divisions (contested at general elections)
• Cape: Cape of Good Hope
• Nat: Natal
• OFS: Orange Free State
• SWA: South West Africa (represented in the House 1950–1977)
• Tvl: Transvaal
• Non-general roll seats (not filled at general elections)
• CCRM: Cape Coloured representative members (represented in the House 1958–1970)
• CNRM: Cape Native representative members (represented in the House 1937–1960)
• IE: Indirectly elected, by the directly elected MPs (represented in the House January 1981 – 1994)
• Nom: Nominated by the State President, one per province (represented in the House January 1981 – 1994)

The following table reflects only those members elected from general roll electoral divisions.

• Senate of South Africa
• Volksraad

• Keesing's Contemporary Archives (various volumes)
• South Africa 1982: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa, published by Chris van Rensburg Publications
• The South African Constitution, by H.J. May (3rd edition 1955, Juta & Co)

• Defunct lower houses
• Political history of South Africa
• Parliament of South Africa
• 1910 establishments in South Africa
• 1994 disestablishments in South Africa
• Defunct national legislatures

• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from August 2024
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from March 2024
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from September 2022
• Use South African English from April 2013
• All Wikipedia articles written in South African English
• Articles containing Afrikaans-language text