The 1919 New Zealand general election was held on Tuesday, 16 December in the

Māori electorates In New Zealand politics, Māori electorates, colloquially known as the Māori seats, are a special category of electorate that give reserved positions to representatives of Māori in the New Zealand Parliament. Every area in New Zealand is ...

and on Wednesday, 17 December in the general electorates to elect a total of 80 MPs to the 20th session of the

New Zealand Parliament The New Zealand Parliament ( mi, Pāremata Aotearoa) is the unicameral legislature of New Zealand, consisting of the King of New Zealand ( King-in-Parliament) and the New Zealand House of Representatives. The King is usually represented by h ...

. A total number of 560,673 (80.5%) voters turned out to vote. In 1919 women won the right to be elected to the House of Representatives. The law was changed late that year, and with only three weeks' notice, three women stood for Parliament. They were

Ellen Melville Eliza Ellen Melville (13 May 1882 – 27 July 1946) was a New Zealand lawyer and politician. She was New Zealand's second female lawyer, and the first woman elected to a city council in New Zealand. She sat on the Auckland City Council for 33 ye ...

in Grey Lynn, Rosetta Baume in Parnell, and Aileen Cooke in Thames. Ellen Melville stood for the Reform Party and came second. She stood for Parliament several more times and generally polled well but never won a seat.

Results

Though Labour Party captured only eight seats it received nearly a quarter of the votes – a shock to conservative minds due to Labour being founded only three years earlier in 1916.

Party totals

Votes summary

Electorate results

The table below shows the results of the 1919 general election: Key , - , colspan=8 style="background-color:#FFDEAD" , General electorates , - , - , colspan=8 style="background-color:#FFDEAD" ,

, -

Summary of changes

A boundary redistribution resulted in the abolition of four electorates: * , held by

Harry Holland Henry Edmund Holland (10 June 1868 – 8 October 1933) was an Australian-born newspaper owner, politician and unionist who relocated to New Zealand. He was the second leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. Early life Holland was born at G ...

* , held by Robert Scott * , held by William Dickie * , held by

William Thomas Jennings William Thomas Jennings (1854 – 6 February 1923) was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand. Early life He was born in Auckland, where he attended St. Paul's school and subsequently became an apprentice printer in the offices of ...

* , held by Robert Wright At the same time, four new electorates were created: * , previously abolished in 1911 * , first created through the 1918 electoral redistribution * , first created through the 1918 electoral redistribution * , first created through the 1918 electoral redistribution * , previously abolished in 1911

Notes

References

* * * * {{New Zealand elections