During the previous Parliament the seats of the three MPs and four Senators representing black South Africans had been abolished.

Under the Separate Representation of Voters Act 1951, the members were to serve until the dissolution of the new Parliament.

[4] The South Africa Act 1909 had provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division, for general roll voters in the four provinces.

At the end of the 12th Parliament elected since the Union of 1910, when it was dissolved in 1961, the House of Assembly consisted of two groups of members.

White voters were represented by 156 general roll members and coloured voters in Cape Province by four white MPs known at the time as Coloured Representative Members (CRM).