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EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD (1796-1862)Author and colonial promoter, Wakefield was born on 20 March 1796 in London, the second of nine children of Edward Wakefield and Susanna, née Crash. Gibbon was educated at Westminster school and Edinburgh High School. Although admitted to Gray's Inn in October 1813 he became secretary to the British envoy at Turin in 1814. He returned briefly to London and in June 1816 eloped with Eliza Ann Frances Pattle, a ward in Chancery. Through the lord chancellor the marriage was approved by parliament and Wakefield returned with Eliza to another appointment at the Turin legation. Susan Priscilla (Nina) was born on December 4th 1817 and Edward Jerningham ten days before Eliza died on July 5th 1820. From this marriage Wakefield derived a substantial life income.Evidently it was not sufficient to sustain his ambitions, for he abducted a 15-year-old heiress, Ellen Turner, from her school in March 1826. They were married at Gretna Green and fled to Calais, pursued by enraged members and friends of the girl's family. She was induced to return to her parents and Wakefield returned to England for trial. He and his brother William, an accomplice, were convicted of a statutory misdemeanour and on May 14th 1827 were each sentenced to three years imprisonment. The marriage was annulled by parliament in spite of a counter-petition by Wakefield. Wakefield's imprisonment in Newgate was to transform his whole career. His disgrace led to his critical study of emigration and to his remedy, systematic colonization. Soon after his entry to Newgate, Wakefield occupied himself by inquiring why the prisoners were there, how effective were their punishments and what were their prospects. |
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His study of emigration aroused his interest in Australasia and his anonymous Sketch of a Proposal for Colonizing Australasia was printed in June 1829. It was reprinted with other articles in the Morning Chronicle from August 21st to October 6th and in A Letter from Sydney, the Principal Town of Australasia, which was published in December with the name of Robert Gouger as editor. The Letter caused some stir in Sydney, for Wakefield claimed that Australian colonies were suffering from chaotic granting of free land, shortage of labour and consequent dependence on convicts. He argued that if settlement were concentrated, waste lands of the crown could be readily sold and the proceeds applied to the emigration of labourers, preferably young married couples, thereby giving maximum population relief in Britain and ensuring a balanced, fruitful colonial society. Wakefield advocated his theory of systematic colonization, infallible and self-regulating, with every available mode of persuasion. Chief among these was his personal magnetism; his manner, gesture and speech, which he projected at meetings, at table, before parliamentary committees, even to passers-by and casual acquaintances. Although a poor speaker in public he was most persuasive at his own fireside and in his writings. He pressed his cause in a constant spate of letters, newspapers, pamphlets and books, in prose as insistent as it was terse. Wakefield's role in the founding of South Australia is difficult to estimate. Torrens later credited him with the major role and so did Governor Sir John Hindmarsh. Robert Gouger and Anthony Bacon who submitted the first South Australian proposals were both associates of Wakefield from his prison days. His biographer, Richard Garnett, hinted that Wakefield intended to go to South Australia in 1832, but that year the first plans for the proposed colony were rejected by the Colonial Office. To explain and elaborate his theories Wakefield anonymously published England and America. A Comparison of the Social and Political State of Both Nations, 2 vols (London, 1833; New York, 1834). Meanwhile another scheme put forward by the South Australian Land Co. had proved abortive. In these years Wakefield spent much time on the Continent. He was absent when the South Australian Association was formed late in 1833, but returned next year to help his brother Daniel to draft the bill to empower His Majesty to erect South Australia into a British province or provinces and to provide for the colonization and government thereof. Wakefield was active in organizing the lobbying that led to parliament passing the bill. After it received royal assent on 15 August 1834, he published The New British Province of South Australia (London, 1834; Edinburgh, 1835), a manual of advice and information for intending colonists. Apart from these contributions Wakefield's name appears rarely in contemporary manuscripts, though his personal influence must have been very great. In January 1835 he took his consumptive daughter to Lisbon, where she died on 12 February. Grief-stricken he returned to London to find that Torrens had been made chairman of the South Australian Colonization Commission appointed by the government. Wakefield's interest in the new province was already on the wane, chiefly because he was disgusted by the low price of land fixed in his absence and the misleading 'self-supporting principle' adopted by Torrens. Still ignored by the Colonial Office, he then came to the view that while colonists had no control of their own land policy their titles would remain insecure. This was a decisive step, for previously an essential article of his faith was that disposal of lands and emigration should be an imperial matter and not subject to local interference. His hopes rose in 1846 when Earl Grey took charge at the Colonial Office. Grey had often shown interest in the Wakefield system but was now violently opposed to Wakefield's espousal of self-government for New Zealand. On August 15th Wakefield, already worn out, suffered a severe stroke from which he never fully recovered. Thenceforth he was obliged to avoid excitement and to retire from London, having only his pen and the penny post to execute his plans unless some man of note could be inveigled to his cottage. Wakefield was an enigma to his contemporaries as he is to posterity. Denied office by his criminal record he devoted his energy to schemes for systematic colonization and responsible government. He brought before the public an number of papers including: Facts Relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis (1831), but also Swing Unmasked, or the Causes of Rural Incendiarism (1831), The Hangman and the Judge (1833) and Popular Politics (1837). Not content only to influence men's minds by his pen he sought directly to influence their actions as well. His personal magnetism and imaginative zeal won him many converts but much disappointment when he found that people could not be controlled like puppets. His idealism would not allow him to compromise, and when he ignored the principles of others their reactions were often bitter. In his restless search to achieve his objectives he ranged through the whole spectrum of English politics and society, utilitarian radicals, Whigs, and High Church Tories, and left behind him some claim to success in penal reform, immigration to New South Wales, and the colonization of South Australia and New Zealand. Wakefield himself turned colonist. He arrived at Christchurch in February 1853 and after a short stay moved to Wellington. He was elected to the first New Zealand General Assembly but his influence over the acting governor earned him much unpopularity and led to a fracas which broke Wakefield's health. He lived in retirement at his home in Wellington and his death on May 16th 1862 went almost unnoticed. |
