The statutes of New Zealand: passed in the fifty-seventh year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Fourth Session of the Eleventh Parliament of New Zealand, begun and holden at Wellington on the twenty-second day of June, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three. Wellington: Government Printer, 1893.
The Electoral Act, 1893 was the culmination of decades of agitation and political action by committed women and men who believed in equal electoral rights and equal citizenship in a democracy.
The Act specified that every person aged 21 or over (who qualified and was registered) was entitled to vote. For clarification, the Act also stated that the definition of ‘person’ included women.
The only other mention of women stated that “No woman, although duly registered as an elector, shall be capable of being nominated as a candidate, or of being elected a member of the House of Representatives, or of being appointed to the Legislative Council.”
The Act passed its third reading in the Legislative Council, the Upper House, on 8 September 1893 and received the royal assent on 19 September.
During those 11 days, suffrage supporters wore white camellias, the symbol of the suffrage movement, while opponents, hoping to persuade the Governor, Lord Glasgow, to withhold assent, adopted the red camellia.
The statutes of New Zealand: passed in the fifty-seventh year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Fourth Session of the Eleventh Parliament of New Zealand, begun and holden at Wellington on the twenty-second day of June, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three. Wellington: Government Printer, 1893.
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