Parliament of the Cape Colony

The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope functioned as the Legislature of the Cape Colony, from its founding in 1853, until the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when it was dissolved and the Parliament of South Africa was established. It consisted of the House of Assembly (the lower house) and the legislative council (the upper house).

Prior to Responsible Government, the British government granted the Cape Colony a rudimentary and relatively powerless Legislative Council in 1835.

The British attempt to turn the Cape into a penal colony for convicts, similar to Australia, mobilised the local population in the 1840s and threw up a generation of local leaders who believed that far-away Britain was not capable of understanding local interests and issues. This group of politicians, which included the likes of Porter, Solomon, Fairbairn, Molteno, and Jarvis, shared not only a common belief in the importance of local self-government, but also an explicit commitment to a liberal, inclusive and multi-racial political system.

This political elite successfully began the controversial drive for Cape independence which, unusually, was attained in the end through gradual evolution, rather than sudden revolution.

The Queen granted the Cape its first Parliament in 1853, and the local leadership were permitted to draft a constitution. This was a relatively liberal document that prohibited race or class discrimination, and instituted the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise, whereby the same qualifications for suffrage were applied equally to all males, regardless of race. The pre-existing Legislative Council became the upper house of the new parliament, and was elected according to the two main provinces of that Cape at the time. A new lower house, the Assembly, was also constituted. However, the parliament was weak and executive power remained firmly in the hands of the Governor who was appointed from London.

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