Bruce by-election, 1862
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The Bruce by-election 1862 was a by-election held in the multi-member Bruce electorate during the 3rd New Zealand Parliament, on 31 July 1862. The by-election was caused by the death of incumbent MP Charles Kettle on 5 June, and was won by Edward Cargill.
The Bruce electorate was formed in the 1860 electoral redistribution. It covered the rural area surrounding Dunedin that had previously been part of the Dunedin Country electorate. The Bruce electorate was a two-member constituency.Charles Kettle and Thomas Gillies were the initial representatives. Kettle died on 5 June 1862, and this caused the by-election. The Otago Gold Rush had started in May 1861 and the wider area experienced a significant increase in population, including the Bruce electorate. The lists of registered electors in several electorate, including Bruce, were revised during July 1862. The Miners' Representation Act, 1860 allowed miners to also vote under certain conditions, and they were not registered in lists; there were approximate 3,000 of them eligible in the Bruce electorate. It is thus not possible to say how many electors were qualified to vote in the by-election. Towards the end of June, it became known that William Baldwin, the gold fields commissioner at Waitahuna, would be a candidate in the by-election.
John Gillies, the father of Thomas Gillies, acted as the returning officer for the by-election, and he set the nomination meeting for Monday, 28 July at 12 noon. At that meeting, F. C. Fulton (a brother of James Fulton) proposed and Otago Provincial Councillor Andrew Todd seconded Baldwin. The second candidate, Edward Cargill, was proposed by William Hunter Reynolds and seconded by Johnny Jones, a former business partner of Cargill. The third person to be proposed was John Cargill, the brother of Edward Cargill, but this came as a surprise to the former who stated that he was not available for election. The two candidates then addressed the electors, and the obvious policy difference between them was that Baldwin was a proponent of separation of the South Island from the North Island, whilst Cargill supported one New Zealand.Julius Vogel, himself a strong proponent of the separation question, then put some hard questions to Cargill. The meeting finished with a show of hands in favour of Cargill (42 to 8 hands), and Baldwin demanded a poll.
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