Overview
Wolmaransstad was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1974. It covered a rural area in the western Transvaal, centred on the town of Wolmaransstad. 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.
History
Like most of the rural Transvaal, Wolmaransstad was a conservative seat and had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was held through most of its existence by the National Party, and for much of its early history by a single MP, Jan Kemp. Kemp was an Afrikaner nationalist who had participated in both the South African War and the Maritz rebellion, and following the latter conflict he was released early from prison in exchange for a promise not to enter politics, which he promptly broke by standing for election in 1920. He served in parliament until 1946, joining the United Party alongside J. B. M. Hertzog in 1934 and returning to the Herenigde Nasionale Party in 1939. He died in 1946, and his seat was briefly taken over by Ernest George Jansen, until he resigned to take up the position of Governor-General.
The seat continued to be safe for the NP, now South Africa's governing party, until its abolition in 1974.