Barberton (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Barberton
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly
Location of Barberton within South Africa (1981)
Province	Transvaal
Electorate	18,092 (1989)
Former constituency
Created	1910 1974
Abolished	1958 1994
Number of members	1
Last MHA	Casper Uys (CP)
Replaced by	Nelspruit (1958) Mpumalanga (1994)

Barberton was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1958 and from 1974 to 1994. Named after the town of Barberton, it covered a part of the eastern Transvaal along the border with Eswatini. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Transvaal Provincial Council.

Franchise notes

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. In the Transvaal Colony, and its predecessor the South African Republic, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Transvaal Province were held on a whites-only franchise from the beginning. The franchise was also restricted by property and education qualifications until the 1933 general election, following the passage of the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931. From then on, the franchise was given to all white citizens aged 21 or over. Non-whites remained disenfranchised until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994. ^[1]

History

Like most of the rural Transvaal, Barberton had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. In its first iteration, it was a marginal seat with a slight lean towards the South African Party, whose leader Jan Smuts was popular in the Transvaal. Its first MP, Joseph Petrus Jooste, resigned on election night, sparking South Africa's first (uncontested) by-election. Deneys Reitz, a protégé of Smuts, was first elected for Barberton in 1929 and served as a cabinet minister starting in 1935. He resigned in 1943 to take up appointment as High Commissioner in London, and in 1948, the seat was one of many in the Transvaal to fall to the Herenigde Nasionale Party. Its final MP, Wessel Hendrik Faurie, was elected for the new seat of Nelspruit on Barberton's abolition in 1958.

In 1974, Barberton was recreated to exist alongside Nelspruit, and by this time it was very safe for the governing party. Its only MP in its second iteration, Casper Uys, defected to Andries Treurnicht's Conservative Party on its formation in 1982, and was re-elected under this label in both 1987 and 1989.

Members

Election		Member	Party
	1910	J. P. Jooste	Het Volk
	1910 by	H. C. Hull
	1915	J. H. Grobler	South African
	1920	J. C. Fourie
	1921
	1924	W. H. Rood	National
	1929	Deneys Reitz	South African
	1933
	1934		United
	1938
	1943 by	L. J. Raubenheimer
	1943
	1948	W. H. Faurie	HNP
	1953		National
	1958	Constituency abolished

Election		Member	Party
	1974	Casper Uys	National
	1977
	1981
	1982		Conservative
	1987
	1989
	1994	Constituency abolished

^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]}

Detailed results

Elections in the 1910s

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 1910 South African general election § Barberton.[ edit ]

General election 1910: Barberton

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Het Volk	J. P. Jooste	836	62.0	New
	Unionist	D. Drew	513	38.0	New
Majority			323	24.0	N/A
	Het Volk win (new seat)

Barberton by-election, 20 October 1910 ^[2]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Het Volk	H. C. Hull	Unopposed
	Het Volk hold

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 1915 South African general election § Barberton.[ edit ]

General election 1915: Barberton

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	South African	J. H. Grobler	1,124	68.3	+6.3
	National	J. L. Malan	522	31.7	New
Majority			602	36.6	N/A
Turnout			1,646	68.3	N/A
	South African hold		Swing	N/A

Elections in the 1920s

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 1920 South African general election § Barberton.[ edit ]

General election 1920: Barberton

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	South African	J. C. Fourie	1,009	55.5	−12.8
	National	J. L. Malan	809	44.5	+12.8
Majority			200	11.0	−25.6
Turnout			1,818	63.2	−5.1
	South African hold		Swing	-12.8

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 1921 South African general election § Barberton.[ edit ]

General election 1921: Barberton

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	South African	J. C. Fourie	1,153	56.8	+1.3
	National	J. L. Malan	876	43.2	−1.3
Majority			277	13.6	+2.6
Turnout			2,029	64.8	+1.6
	South African hold		Swing	+1.3

References

1. "EISA South Africa: Historical franchise arrangements". Eisa.org.za. Archived from the original on 9 May 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
2. Schoeman, B.M. (1977). Parlementêre verkiesings in Suid-Afrika 1910-1976. Pretoria: Aktuele Publikasies.
3. Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (1972). "House of Assembly" (vol. 5, pp. 617–636). Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou).
4. South Africa 1980/81: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications.
5. South Africa 1983: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications.
6. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 10751. 22 May 1987. Pretoria: Government of South Africa.
7. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 12109. 20 September 1989. Pretoria: Government of South Africa.