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Story: Citizenship

Numbers of people naturalised, by major country of origin, 1882–1894

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Numbers of people naturalised, by major country of origin,    1882–1894

In the 19th century, Germans and Scandinavians (Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) predominated among the ‘aliens’ who became British subjects by naturalisation. Between 1855 and 1866, Germans were about two-thirds of all non-Britons who chose to become naturalised. Between 1882 and 1894, as this graph shows, slightly more Scandinavians than Germans became British subjects. In the later period, a significant number of Chinese also became naturalised.

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Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Source: New Zealand Official Yearbook, 1895

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How to cite this page

David Green, Citizenship – Choosing citizenship, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/graph/3761/numbers-of-people-naturalised-by-major-country-of-origin-1882-1894 (accessed 5 June 2026).

Story by David Green, published 4 March 2009.