1862 in New Zealand

Incumbents

Regal and viceregal

• Head of State – Queen Victoria
• Governor – Sir George Grey

  Government and law

• Speaker of the House – David Monro
• Premier – Alfred Domett replaces William Fox on 6 August after Fox loses a vote of no-confidence.
• 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.
• Chief Justice – Hon Sir George Arney

  Events

• 27 January - The Auckland Register, which started in 1857, ceases publication.
• 1 July - The first telegraph transmission in New Zealand is made from Lyttelton Post Office to Christchurch.
• 7 July - Parliament meets in Wellington for the first time.
• 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.
• 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.
• Otago Gold Rush

  Undated

• The Nelson Intelligence is a short-lived newspaper in the Nelson, New Zealand area.

  Sport

Cricket

Horse racing

Major race winner

• New Zealand Derby – Emmeline

  Lawn bowls

Rowing

Shooting

Births

• 15 June: George Helmore, rugby union player
• 21 October: John Findlay, politician

  Unknown date

• Albert Pitt, politician
• Charles Kendall Wilson, politician.

  Deaths

• 16 May: Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a driving force behind New Zealand's colonisation
• 5 June: Charles Kettle, surveyor of Dunedin
• October: Iwikau Te Heuheu Tukino III, tribal leader