William Henry Harrison (New Zealand politician)
New Zealand politician (1831-1879)

William Henry Harrison (1831 – 30 May 1879) was a 19th-century journalist from Greymouth who represented two Westland electorates in the New Zealand House of Representatives.
Early life and professional career
Harrison was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, in 1831. He emigrated to New Zealand in early 1860 and arrived in Auckland, where he went into business. When his business failed, he was attracted by the Otago gold rush in 1861, but ended up working as a staff member of Julius Vogel on the Otago Daily Times. He moved to Greymouth in 1865, where he was the editor of the Grey River Argus.
In 1871, he moved to Wellington and became editor of the Wellington Independent, but he returned after one year to the Grey River Argus.
Political career
In the 1868 by-election in the Westland Boroughs electorate, he contested the election against William Shaw, the Mayor of Hokitika, following the resignation of William Sefton Moorhouse. Harrison and Shaw received 98 and 81 votes, respectively. Harrison represented the Westland Boroughs electorate until 1870, and then the Grey Valley electorate from 1871 to 1875, when he retired.
He represented the Greymouth riding from February 1868 to December 1870 on the Westland County.
The public source identifies “William Henry Harrison (New Zealand politician)” as new Zealand politician (1831-1879). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Henry and Harrison.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Henry Harrison (New Zealand politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.