Harry Bedford (politician)

For other people named Harry Bedford, see Harry Bedford (disambiguation).

Harry Dodgshun Bedford (August 1877 – 17 February 1918) was a New Zealand university academic and Member of Parliament for the City of Dunedin.

Member of Parliament

Parliament of New Zealand
Years	Term	Electorate		Party
1902–1905	15th	City of Dunedin		Independent Liberal
1905	Changed allegiance to:			New Liberal

Harry Bedford represented one of the multi-member City of Dunedin seats in the New Zealand Parliament from 1902 to 1905.

Bedford was an Independent Liberal in 1902 topped the poll for Dunedin City with 10,088 votes. He became the sensation of the 1902 election: a political novice who had obtained the highest individual vote ever recorded in New Zealand. The Lyttelton Times described him as: "the 'idol of Dunedin'...young, good-looking, able, earnest, energetic and highly attractive as a speaker".. In 1905, Bedford stood for the new seat of Dunedin North but was not successful.

He contested Dunedin West in 1911 as an Independent polling 3,635 votes to 778 votes for Jim Munro. The seat was held by John Millar on the second ballot. Harry Bedford joined the United Labour Party in 1912.

Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, in August 1877, Bedford was a professor of history and economics at the University of Otago in Dunedin. He drowned at Whangarei on 17 February 1918.