, the division's namesake The division was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the
original 65 divisions contested at the
first federal election. The division is named after
William Charles Wentworth (1790–1872), an Australian explorer and statesman. In 1813 he accompanied
Blaxland and
Lawson on their crossing of the
Blue Mountains. Wentworth was also an advocate of free and representative government in Australia. Historically considered a safe seat for the
Liberal Party of Australia and its predecessors, Wentworth is the only original federation division in New South Wales which has never been held by the
Australian Labor Party, though Labor candidate
Jessie Street came within 1.6 percent of winning Wentworth at the
1943 election landslide. The electorate is the nation's wealthiest, contains the nation's largest Jewish population and contains the nation's fifth-largest number of same-sex couples. Its most prominent member was
Malcolm Turnbull, who served as
Leader of the Opposition from 2008 to 2009 and as
Prime Minister of Australia from
September 2015 until
August 2018. Other prominent members have included
Sir Eric Harrison, who was the first Deputy of the
Liberal Party;
Les Bury and
Bob Ellicott, who both served as prolific ministers in successive Liberal governments of the 1960s and 1970s;
Peter Coleman, who had served as
New South Wales Opposition Leader from 1977 until he lost his seat in the
1978 state election; and
John Hewson, who served as Opposition Leader from 1990 to 1994. Like Turnbull after him, Hewson served as federal Liberal leader whilst in his second term as the MP for Wentworth. In August 2018, a challenge by
Peter Dutton led to
two Liberal leadership spills. Following the second spill on 24 August 2018, Treasurer
Scott Morrison defeated Dutton in a leadership ballot. Turnbull did not nominate as a candidate, and immediately resigned as Prime Minister. On 31 August 2018 Turnbull resigned from Parliament, triggering the
2018 Wentworth by-election on 20 October 2018, which was won by
independent candidate
Kerryn Phelps. Phelps narrowly lost her seat to Liberal
Dave Sharma in the
2019 Australian federal election. Sharma lost the seat in the
May 2022 Australian federal election to "teal independent"
Allegra Spender. In 2025, a large swing against the Liberals, alongside major redistribution making the seat more notionally competitive, lead to Labor winning the notional two-party preferred in the electorate for the first time since the electorate's formation in 1901. ==Geography==