Alfred Hindmarsh

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Alfred Humphrey Hindmarsh (18 April 1860 - 13 November 1918) was a New Zealand politician and unionist.

Hindmarsh was born in Port Elliot, Australia, and was the grandson of John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South Australia. He moved with his family to Napier, New Zealand, in 1878. Hindmarsh trained as a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1891. He settled in Wellington.

Politically, Hindmarsh was left-wing, and held a number of positions in the local labour movement. Most notably, he headed the Wellington branch of the Seamen's Union during the internal disputes of the 1890s. In this role, he argued against the traditional alignment of unions with the governing Liberal Party, instead advocating an independent labour voice in Parliament. In 1901, Hindmarsh himself stood for the Wellington City Council, but was unsuccessful, but in 1905, backed by the new Independent Political Labour League which he had helped found, he was elected. He would remain a city councillor until 1915.

In the 1905 general election, Hindmarsh stood as an IPLL candidate for Parliament, but was unsuccessful. In the 1912, he was elected in Wellington South as a candidate for the original Labour Party. The following year, the party was relaunched as the United Labour Party, with Hindmarsh still a member. In 1913, the United Labour Party itself agreed to merge with the Socialist Party to form the Social Democratic Party, but Hindmarsh believed that the resulting party would be too extreme. Hindmarsh chose became one of a group of United Labour loyalists who remained outside the Social Democrats, forming a loosely organised "remnant" faction.

In 1915, when the Social Democrats and the United Labour remnant agreed to form a united caucus, Hindmarsh was selected as chairman. The following year, most of this caucus agreed to establish the modern Labour Party — Hindmarsh was the acting parliamentary leader of the party during its period of establishment, although did not take any executive office.

Hindmarsh died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.