Skip to content

Delimitation Commission Reports 1910-1980

Literature › Primary sources

Kind commission or official report
Producer South African Delimitation Commissions
Coverage 1910-1980
Works using it 10

Project holdings

The project holds this source in full. See Elections.

Debates

Debate Works
White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems 13
Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism 3
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion 2
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth? 2
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement 1
Racial wage gaps, wage convergence and wage determination 1

Works using this source

Work As cited Period How used
Brink et al. (1953) Previous delimitation commission reports (1947 report, para 19) 1947 Cited to rebut claims that earlier commissions loaded urban and unloaded rural seats simply on density, and about the weight of 'means of communication'.
Brink et al. (1953) Voter figures at the previous (1947) delimitation 1947 Serves as the baseline for growth in voters (e.g. Transvaal 578,722 in 1947, Free State up 20,798) and for the quota and seat allocation comparisons.
Carter (1958) Delimitation Commission and Torch Commando memorandum (1952) and Loyalist/organisation documents 1910-1952 Used for rural/urban weighting of seats and constituency allocation.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Fourteenth Delimitation Commission, Government Gazette No. 7246, 3 October 1980 1980 Used for the 1980 redrawing around 'independent' Black states, communications criteria and the survival rate of constituencies.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Ninth Delimitation Commission, Government Gazette No. 3931, 13 February 1948 1948 Quoted to show the 1948 Commissioners rejected a general right to a rural unload and aimed at the quota.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Second Delimitation Commission, UG 15-1913 1913 Cited as having examined a 20 per cent deviation which the Assembly was unwilling to adopt.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Tenth Delimitation Commission, Government Gazette No. 5009, 20 February 1953 1953 Shows that Commissioners took permitted deviations as injunctions, wanted to unload extensive constituencies further, and characterised Port Elizabeth constituencies.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Third Delimitation Commission, UG 58-1919 1919 Shows how the community of interest criterion linked towns to surrounding farmers and led to dividing Bloemfontein.
Christopher (1983a) Report of the Twelfth Delimitation Commission, Government Gazette No. 1364, 7 February 1966 1966 Quoted for the mandatory loading of dense and unloading of sparse electoral divisions; also cited on registration activity by party workers.
Christopher (1983a) Reports of the Delimitation Commissions 1910-1980 (First to Fourteenth Commissions) 1910-1980 Supplies the figures in Table 1 (seats by province, voters, average seat size, coefficient of variation) and the Commissioners' stated reasoning on loading, unloading and community of interest.
Christopher (1983b) Delimitation Commission Reports 1910-1980 (First to Fourteenth Commissions) 1910-1980 Source of seats per province, number of voters, average voters per seat and coefficient of variation in Table 1, and of Commissioners' statements on loading/unloading and the criteria applied.
Cillié et al. (1980) Report of the Thirteenth Delimitation Commission (1973) and its division boundaries 1973 Existing boundaries and prior loads serve as a starting point and constraint, and prior commission principles are cited.
Cillié et al. (1980) Voter figures at the Thirteenth Delimitation Commission (31 May 1973) 1973 Provides the baseline voter numbers against which growth or decline in each province and division is calculated.
Laurence et al. (1913) Report of the first Delimitation Commission (1910) 1910 Provides the baseline divisions, principles and precedent (e.g. Barberton, Cape Peninsula) that this Commission preserves or revises.
Lemon (1982) Report of the Fourteenth Delimitation Commission, Government Gazette 184, no. 7246 1980 Cited as a reason for the early election and for the new constituency boundaries.
Potgieter et al. (1966) Reports of previous Delimitation Commissions (Tenth 1953?, Eleventh 1957) and 1957 voter figures 1957 Provides the baseline for comparison: 1957 boundaries retained in ten divisions, and voter growth (OFS 136,556 to 165,454; Natal 160,408 to 203,814).
Price (1953) 1947 delimitation of constituencies 1947 Provides the previous quotas and seat allocations against which the 1953 changes are compared.
Price (1953) Report of the Delimitation Commission, January 1953 sittings July 1952; report January 1953 Supplies provincial seat allocations and voter quotas with maximum/minimum numbers, and the finding that rural seats were unloaded and urban seats loaded.
White (1990) Report of the Ninth Delimitation Commission and 31 May 1947 electoral roll 1947 Baseline for showing urban loads were understated relative to the voters registered by polling day.