Gold Fields (New Zealand electorate)

The Gold Fields District electorate was a 19th-century parliamentary electorate in the Otago region, New Zealand. It was created in 1862, with the first elections in the following year, and it returned two members. It was one of eventually three special interest constituencies created to meet the needs of gold miners. All three of these electorates were abolished in 1870. A unique feature of the Gold Fields District was that it was superimposed over other electorates, and voting was open to those who had held a mining license for some time. As such, suffrage was more relaxed than elsewhere in New Zealand, as voting was otherwise tied to property ownership. Another feature unique to the gold mining electorates was that no electoral rolls were prepared, but voting could be done upon showing a complying miner's license.

The Gold Fields electorate was superimposed on existing Otago electorates. It covered all areas where gold mining was undertaken. The electorates over which it was originally superimposed were Wallace, Hampden, and Bruce. An electoral redistribution was carried out in 1865 that applied from the 1866 election, and in addition to the three original electorates, the Gold Fields electorate was superimposed over Oamaru, Manuherikia, Waikouaiti, Taieri, and Clutha. From 1866, ten gold mining towns across Otago were covered by the Gold Field Towns electorate instead of the Gold Fields electorate, and they were Queenstown, Arrowtown, Cromwell, Clyde, Alexandra, Dunstan Creek, Roxburgh, Hamiltons, Lawrence, and Havelock.

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