Talk:2nd New Zealand Parliament

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Wanganui and Rangitikei

It says in the article that there weren't any changes to electorates. This is not consistent with the following, though:

According to Wanganui and Rangitikei, the electorate existed from 1853–55 (so something must have changed), and
The glimpse that Google Books allows shows that William Fox represented Whanganui (New Zealand electorate) from 1855–60, and that entry is right underneath the one for Wanganui and Rangitikei.

Can anybody shed some light on this? Schwede 66 09:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I can now shed some light on it myself. I've got Wilson's New Zealand Parliamentary Record (what the Google link above refers to) and McRobie's Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, and they disagree on this matter.

Wilson says Wanganui and Rangitikei was abolished in 1855 (page 275). Fox was elected in the Wanganui electorate in the 1855 election (page 197).
McRobie says that the General Assembly made the first change to electorates in 1858; the 1859 supplementary elections resulted from that (page 29). As part of that process, Wanganui and Rangitikei was enlarged to take in previously unincorporated area; all the unincorporated area in the North Island was assigned to electorates at that time (pages 28–29).
I've had a look at PapersPast, and indeed, Wanganui and Rangitikei does not get a mention; here's a link to one exception that I found. The contemporary press almost always talked of the Wanganui district.
Finally, I had a look at the legislation, The Electoral Districts Act, 1858. Indeed, what is written there aligns with what McRobie says: "The WANGANUI AND RANGITIKEI District is bounded on the North by the 39th parallel of South latitude..." (the 39th parallel is the boundary between the Auckland and Wellington Provinces, so this deals with the unincorporated land).

So, McRobie has it right and Wilson got it wrong. I can see how it happened, given that the contemporary naming appears to have been Wanganui. I shall update the various articles accordingly. Schwede 66 17:36, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]