New South Wales politics were initially non-partisan, with individual Members of Parliament choosing to align either with the Government or the Opposition.
This changed at the 1887 election where, for the first time, candidates were members of official political parties.
The 1904 election saw a massive defeat of the Progressive government and for the first time Labor became the major opposition party.
Most of the Progressive members stood as the Liberals at the next election and the party folded not long after that.
The table below shows the total number of seats won by the major political parties at each election.