Minister of Finance – Reader Wood loses the post on 6 August with the fall of the Fox government, and is replaced by Dillon Bell, but is reappointed just 15 days later on 21 August.
7 July – Parliament meets in Wellington for the first time. (see also 1863; 1865)
15 August – Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly arrive in Dunedin with 87 pounds of gold from the banks of the Clutha river in Cromwell George leading to the Dunstan Gold Rush.[5]
12 November – The Invercargill Times publishes its first issue. It changed its name to The Southland Times two years later, and became a daily in 1875. It continues to publish today[update].[6]
