History
The electorate was created as Christchurch City East for the 1871 election. Edward Jerningham Wakefield was elected and represented the electorate until the end of the electoral term in 1875, when Christchurch City East was abolished again, replaced by the three-member electorate City of Christchurch.
Christchurch East was re-created again for the 1905 election. The first representative, Thomas Davey, held the electorate for three parliamentary terms until 1914, when he retired. Davey was an Independent sympathetic to the Liberal Party.
Davey was succeeded by Henry Thacker of the Liberal Party. Thacker served for two terms and was elected Mayor of Christchurch in 1919.
Thacker was defeated in the 1922 election by Tim Armstrong of the Labour Party. Since his 1922 win, the electorate (for as long as it existed) has been held by Labour. Armstrong was re-elected in the five subsequent general elections and died in office on 8 November 1942.
Armstrong's death triggered the 1943 by-election, which was held on 6 February. The by-election was contested by five candidates, including representatives from the Labour Party, the Labour breakaway party Democratic Labour Party and the National Party. The election was won by the Labour candidate, Mabel Howard, and started her long parliamentary career, which included her becoming the first female cabinet minister in 1947.
Christchurch East was abolished in 1946 and re-created in 1996 for the MMP-era.
Read more about this topic: Christchurch East
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)