20th New Zealand Parliament
|20th Parliament of New Zealand|
|Term||14 June 1920 – 31 October 1922|
|Election||1919 New Zealand general election|
|House of Representatives|
|Speaker of the House||Frederic Lang|
|Prime Minister||William Massey|
|Leader of the Opposition||Thomas Wilford from 8 September 1920 |
––William MacDonald until 31 August 1920 †
|Members||43 (at start)|
38 (at end)
|Speaker of the Council||Sir Walter Carncross|
|Leader of the Council||Sir Francis Bell|
|Monarch||HM George V|
|Governor-General||HE Rt. Hon. The Viscount Jellicoe from 27 September 1920|
HE Rt. Hon. The Earl of Liverpool until 8 July 1920
1919 general electionEdit
The 1919 general election was held on Tuesday, 16 December in the Māori electorates and on Wednesday, 17 December in the general electorates, respectively. A total of 80 MPs were elected; 45 represented North Island electorates, 31 represented South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented Māori electorates. 683,420 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 80.5%.
The 20th Parliament sat for five sessions (there were two sessions in 1912 and 1913, respectively), and was prorogued on 30 November 1922.
|first||24 June 1920||11 November 1920|
|second||10 March 1921||22 March 1921|
|third||22 September 1921||22 December 1921|
|fourth||11 January 1922||11 February 1922|
|fifth||28 June 1922||31 October 1922|
Start of ParliamentEdit
|Party||Leader(s)||Seats at start|
|Reform Party||William Massey||43|
|Liberal Party||William MacDonald||17|
|Labour Party||Harry Holland||8|
End of ParliamentEdit
|Party||Leader(s)||Seats at end|
|Reform Party||William Massey||44|
|Liberal Party||Thomas Wilford||16|
|Labour Party||Harry Holland||9|
The wartime coalition between the Reform Party and the Liberal Party had come to an end by August 1919. William Massey of the Reform Party had been the leader of the coalition, with Joseph Ward of the Liberal Party as the deputy. Ward left the coalition because it had become deeply unpopular with the population. Massey then formed the second Massey Ministry on 25 August 1919 and remained in power during the term of the 20th Parliament and beyond until his death on 10 May 1925.
Initial composition of the 20th ParliamentEdit
The table below shows the results of the 1919 general election:
|Independent Liberal||Independent Labour||Independent|
By-elections during 20th ParliamentEdit
There were a number of changes during the term of the 20th Parliament.
|Electorate and by-election||Date||Incumbent||Cause||Winner|
|Bruce||1920||14 April||James Allen||Resignation||John Edie|
|Stratford||1920||6 May||Robert Masters||Election declared void||Robert Masters|
|Bay of Plenty||1920||30 September||William MacDonald||Death||Kenneth Williams|
|Patea||1921||13 April||Walter Powdrell||Death||Edwin Dixon|
|Auckland East||1921||2 November||Arthur Myers||Resignation||Clutha Mackenzie|
|Southern Maori||1922||25 January||Hopere Uru||Death||Henare Uru|
|Dunedin North||1922||21 June||Edward Kellett||Death||James Munro|
- "General elections 1853–2005 - dates & turnout". Elections New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
- Scholefield 1950, p. 90.
- Scholefield 1950, p. 69.
- Scholefield 1950, p. 44.
- Gustafson, Barry. "Massey, William Ferguson - Biography". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
- Scholefield 1950, pp. 44–45.
- Hislop, J. (1921). The General Election, 1919. National Library. pp. 1–6. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
- Gustafson 1980, p. 181.
- Gustafson 1980, p. 155.
- "Notice of Nominations Received". Hawke's Bay Tribune. IX (303). 9 December 1919. p. 6. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
- "Napier". Hawera & Normanby Star. LXXIV. 7 November 1919. p. 5. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
- Brown, Colin. "Moses Ayrton". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
- Gustafson 1980, p. 154.
- "Notice of Nominations Received". The Press. LV (16702). 10 December 1919. p. 12. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
- "Rotorua Seat". Auckland Star. L (282). 27 November 1919. p. 11. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
- "Liberal Selection for Tauranga". Wairarapa Daily Times. 45 (13977). 11 November 1919. p. 5. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
- "Waitemata Parliamentary Election". Observer. XL (14). 6 December 1919. p. 12. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- Gustafson, Barry (1980). Labour's path to political independence: The Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1900–19. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press. ISBN 0-19-647986-X.
- McRobie, Alan (1989). Electoral Atlas of New Zealand. Wellington: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01384-8.
- Scholefield, Guy (1950) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 (3rd ed.). Wellington: Govt. Printer.
- Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.