At the 1903 federal election, the division (on very different boundaries) was won unopposed by the sitting speaker (following traditional Westminster convention), running as an independent.

Wakefield was abolished in 2019, following a redistribution triggered by a change in representation entitlement which saw South Australia's seats in the House of Representatives reduced to ten.

In its final configuration as an exclusively rural seat, it stretched from the Yorke Peninsula in the west to the New South Wales border in the east, and included much of the Riverland.

It covered the towns of Angaston, Balaklava, Barmera Berri, Gawler, Gumeracha, Kadina, Kapunda, Loxton, Minlaton, Moonta, Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Nuriootpa, Renmark, Tanunda, Waikerie, Wallaroo and Yorketown.

Neil Andrew, the seat's member since 1983, had previously held the old rural Wakefield with a comfortably safe majority of 14.6 percent.

Under the electoral redistribution completed in 2018 the adjoining Division of Port Adelaide was abolished, Wakefield was renamed Spence in honour of Catherine Helen Spence, and became a seat based on Adelaide's outer northern metropolitan local government councils of City of Playford, Town of Gawler and northern part of the City of Salisbury.