Durban Central (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Durban Central
Durban-Sentraal
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly
Location of Durban Central within Durban (1910)
Province	Natal
Electorate	16,957 (1989)
Former constituency
Created	1910 1943
Abolished	1929 1994
Number of members	1
Last MHA	P. H. P. Gastrow (DP)
Created from	Durban Greyville (1943)
Replaced by	Durban Stamford Hill (1929) KwaZulu-Natal (1994)

Durban Central (Afrikaans: Durban-Sentraal) was a constituency in the Natal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1929 and again from 1943 to 1994. As the name implies, it covered the central business district of Durban. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly.

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. The franchise used in the Natal Colony, while theoretically not restricted by race, was significantly less liberal than that of the Cape, and no more than a few hundred non-white electors ever qualified. In 1908, an estimated 200 of the 22,786 electors in the colony were of non-European descent, and by 1935, only one remained.^[1] By 1958, when the last non-white voters in the Cape were taken off the rolls, Natal too had an all-white electorate. 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, which remained the case until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.^[2]

Like the rest of Durban, Durban Central was a largely English-speaking seat. In its first iteration, it was a marginal seat, frequently changing hands between the Labour and Unionist parties. Following a 1914 by-election, it was briefly represented by veteran Jewish lawyer and labour activist Morris Kentridge, father of anti-apartheid defence lawyer Sydney Kentridge, but he lost the seat again at the 1915 general election. Labour briefly regained the seat with J. W. Coleman in 1920, but lost it again at the 1921 snap election, and the South African Party's Charles Phineas Robinson would represent it until its abolition in 1929. Robinson moved to the neighbouring safe seat of Stamford Hill, where he was elected unopposed, and held that seat until 1938.

Durban Central was recreated in 1943, largely out of the abolished Greyville constituency, and its MP, John George Derbyshire of the Dominion Party, was elected for the new seat. The Dominion Party was on its last legs in 1943, and Derbyshire lost re-election in 1948 to the United Party's Noel McMillan. In its second iteration, Durban Central would become a safe seat for the UP, going unopposed on several occasions, and when the party dissolved in 1977, Durban Central MP Peter Andrew Pyper followed several of his Natal UP colleagues into the conservative New Republic Party. Durban's electorate was getting more liberal, however, and in 1981, Pyper was defeated by the Progressive Federal Party's Peter Hans Paul Gastrow, who would hold the seat until its abolition in 1994.

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