Wairau (New Zealand electorate)

Wairau was a parliamentary electorate in the Marlborough Region of New Zealand. It was one of the initial 24 New Zealand electorates and existed from 1853 until its abolition in 1938, when it was succeeded by the Marlborough electorate. The electorate had 13 representatives during its existence. The 1861 election in the Wairau electorate was notable in that a later Premier, Frederick Weld, was unexpectedly and narrowly defeated by William Henry Eyes.

The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, passed by the British government, allowed New Zealand to establish a representative government. The initial 24 New Zealand electorates were defined by Governor George Grey in March 1853. Wairau was one of the initial single-member electorates.

The initial area covered the Marlborough Sounds in the north to the Hurunui River in the south. Settlements within that area were Picton, Blenheim, and Kaikoura.

The Constitution Act also allowed the House of Representatives to establish new electorates, and this was first done in 1858, when four new electorates were formed by splitting existing electorates. The Cheviot electorate was formed by taking area from the Wairau and Christchurch Country electorates.

The Wairau electorate's boundaries were constantly adjusted over the years, but the electorate always covered a large, rural area around the Awatere River, with a long coastal boundary outh of Cape Campbell, at times as far south as Kaikoura. Blenheim was always included in the electorate, but Picton not always. The 1918 electoral redistribution, which applied from the 1919 election, changed the shape of the electorate significantly, with it moving away from the Pacific Ocean coast to make way for the Hurunui electorate moving north. Wairau gained large areas of land south of Richmond. It also covered the Marlborough Sounds, and Blenheim was the southernmost point along the coast. The 1922 electoral redistribution reversed this and Wairau moved back to its traditional area. Wairau was abolished through the 1937 electoral redistribution, which came into effect with the 1938 election, and replaced by the Marlborough electorate, which had more or less the same shape as Wairau had had since the 1927 electoral redistribution.

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