Wairau was a parliamentaryelectorate in theMarlborough Region of New Zealand. It was one of the initial 24 New Zealand electorates and existed from 1853 until its abolition in 1938, when it was succeeded by theMarlborough electorate. The electorate had 13 representatives during its existence. The1861 election in the Wairau electorate was notable in that a laterPremier,Frederick Weld, was unexpectedly and narrowly defeated byWilliam Henry Eyes.
TheNew Zealand Constitution Act 1852, passed by the British government, allowed New Zealand to establish a representative government. The initial 24 New Zealand electorates were defined by GovernorGeorge Grey in March 1853. Wairau was one of the initial single-member electorates.[1]
The Constitution Act also allowed theHouse of Representatives to establish new electorates, and this was first done in 1858, when four new electorates were formed by splitting existing electorates. TheCheviot electorate was formed by taking area from the Wairau andChristchurch Country electorates.[3]
The Wairau electorate's boundaries were constantly adjusted over the years, but the electorate always covered a large, rural area around theAwatere River, with a long coastal boundary south ofCape Campbell, at times as far south as Kaikōura. Blenheim was always included in the electorate, but Picton not always.[4] The 1918 electoral redistribution, which applied from the1919 election, changed the shape of the electorate significantly, with it moving away from thePacific Ocean coast to make way for theHurunui electorate moving north. Wairau gained large areas of land south ofRichmond. It also covered the Marlborough Sounds, and Blenheim was the southernmost point along the coast.[5] The 1922 electoral redistribution reversed this and Wairau moved back to its traditional area.[6] Wairau was abolished through the 1937 electoral redistribution, which came into effect with the1938 election, and replaced by theMarlborough electorate, which had more or less the same shape as Wairau had had since the 1927 electoral redistribution.[7]
Wairau was one of the original electorates for thefirst general election in 1853.Frederick Weld was declared elected unopposed at the nomination meeting on 2 August 1853.[8] Weld resigned in June 1855 to return to England, but as the next election was to be held within a few months, this did not cause a by-election.[9][10] The nomination for the1855 election was set for 19 November, and this is the date recorded in the standard reference book, theNew Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984, for the election ofWilliam Wells,[11] but that election did not happen. The mail did not reach the Wairau Valley in time, and the electors did not know about the election.[12] The new date for the nomination meeting was set as 6 December.[13] Wells was one of many members of the House of Representatives who resigned in early 1858; he placed a public notice to that effect in the 20 March edition ofThe Nelson Examiner.[14] At the opening of the second session of the2nd Parliament on 10 April 1858,[15] thespeaker read out 14 resignations, including that of Wells.[16] Weld had returned from England by then and agreed to be a candidate at theby-election, andAlfred Saunders received an acquisition and also agreed to stand.[17][18][19] On nomination day, only Weld's name was put forward, who was thus declared elected unopposed.[20]
TheNew Zealand Constitution Act 1852 gave Parliament the power to establish new electorates, and this was first used later in 1858 when four new electorates were created. This also affected the Wairau electorate, which was combined with theChristchurch Country electorate and then redivided, and theCheviot electorate was established through this process.[21] The1859 supplementary election returnedEdward Jollie for the Cheviot electorate.[22]
In the1861 election, Weld was challenged byWilliam Henry Eyes, with Eyes winning by a four-vote margin (65 votes to 61).[23] Weld stood two weeks later in the Cheviot electorate, where he decisively beatCharles Hunter Brown.[24] At the1866 election, Eyes was returned unopposed; the previous year, he had been chosenSuperintendent ofMarlborough Province.[25] In1871, Eyes was challenged byHenry Redwood but remained the preferred representative by the voters.[26][27] In December 1871, Eyes was appointed Crown Lands Commissioner for the Marlborough Province and as a public servant, he could no longer hold a seat in parliament and had to resign.[28] The resulting1872 by-election was contested byArthur Seymour andJoseph Ward, with Seymour the successful candidate.[29] Seymour remained a member of the General Assembly until his resignation in 1875 prior to a trip to England. The resulting1875 by-election was won by Ward, who defeatedWilliam Sefton Moorhouse.[30] Seymour returned from England just prior to the1876 election.George Henderson, a formerMayor of Blenheim,[31][32] became a candidate in the Wairau electorate whilst Ward announced that he would stand in theCheviot electorate instead.[33][34] Seymour won the election in the Wairau electorate with 201 votes to 179 for Henderson.[35] Ward was beaten in the Cheviot electorate byLeonard Harper.[36] Henderson and Seymour both contested the1879 election, with Seymour again confirmed by the voters.[37]
In the1881 election, Seymour was beaten byHenry Dodson, a former member of the Marlborough Provincial Council and a former Mayor of Blenheim.[38][39] In1884, Dodson defeated Joseph Ward.[40] The1887 election saw a three-way contest, with Dodson challenged by George Henderson and Sutherland John Macalister.[41] Dodson won the election; this was Henderson's third attempt to become the Wairau electorate's representative.[42] Dodson retired in 1890,[43] and three candidates put their name forward:Lindsay Buick, Arthur Seymour, and Sutherland John Macalister. Buick, a journalist and historian, won the election.[44] TheLiberal Party was founded after the 1890 election and when it came to the1893, Buick as incumbent and the barrister William Sinclair both stood for the Liberal Party, whilst the sheep farmerJohn Duncan ran as an independent.[45][46] Buick won the election with an increased majority.[47]
In the 1896 electoral redistribution, the neighbouringWaimea-Sounds electorate was abolished, and its area distributed to theMotueka,City of Nelson, and Wairau electorates. The incumbent of the Waimea-Sounds electorate,Charles H. Mills, lived inHavelock, and whilst the town was just within the City of Nelson electorate, most of Mills' traditional constituency was located within the Wairau electorate, and he thus challenged Wairau's incumbent, Buick, in the1896 election.[48] Buick and Mills received 2014 and 2072 votes, respectively, and Mills thus succeeded Buick in Wairau.[49] The 1896 election was "one of the hardest fought contests" in the Wairau electorate up to that point.[50] In the1899 election, Mills was challenged byWalter Clifford, but Mills remained the preferred candidate by a greatly increased margin.[51]
