Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) was an English politician in colonial Canada and New Zealand. He is considered a key figure in the establishment in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s of British colonies in Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a member of parliament). He also played a role in the history of Canada, being involved in the drafting of Lord Durham's Report and serving as a member of the Parliament of the Province of Canada for a short time.
He was best known for his colonisation scheme, sometimes referred to as the Wakefield scheme or the Wakefield system, which aimed to populate the new colony of South Australia with a workable combination of labourers, tradespeople, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants.
Despite being found guilty and imprisoned in 1827 for kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl, he enjoyed a lengthy career in colonial governments and colonial policy.
Early life and education Wakefield was born in London in 1796, the eldest son of Edward Wakefield (1774–1854), a distinguished surveyor and land agent, and Susanna Crush (1767–1816). His grandmother, Priscilla Wakefield (1751–1832), was a popular author for the young, and one of the introducers of savings banks.
He was the brother of: Catherine Gurney Wakefield (1793–1873) (who was the mother of Charles Torlesse (1825–1866)); Daniel Bell Wakefield (1798–1858); Arthur Wakefield (1799–1843); William Hayward Wakefield (1801–1848); John Howard Wakefield (1803–1862); Felix Wakefield (1807–1875); Priscilla Susannah Wakefield (1809–1887); Percy Wakefield (1810–1832); and an unnamed child born in 1813.
Wakefield was educated at Westminster School in London, and Edinburgh.
Early career, marriage and family He served as a King's Messenger, carrying diplomatic mail all about Europe during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars, both before and after the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
In 1816, he eloped with a Miss Eliza Pattle and they were subsequently married in Edinburgh. It appears to have been a love match, but the fact that she was a wealthy heiress probably played a part, with Edward receiving a marriage settlement of £70,000 (almost US$7m in 2018 dollars), with the prospect of more when Eliza turned 21.
The married couple, accompanied by the bride's mother and various servants, moved to Genoa, Italy, where Wakefield was again employed in a diplomatic capacity. Here his first child, Susan Priscilla Wakefield, known as Nina, was born in 1817. The household returned to London in 1820 and a second child, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, was born. Four days later Eliza died, and Edward resigned his post. The two children were brought up by their aunt, Wakefield's older sister, Catherine.
Nina was suffering from tuberculosis, and Wakefield took his daughter to Lisbon in Portugal in the hope of recovery. He employed a young peasant girl, Leocadia de Oliveira, whom he later fostered, to help care for Nina, and after Nina's death in 1835, sent Leocadia on to Wellington, New Zealand, where she met John Taine and had 13 children.
Abduction scandal (1826)
Although wealthy by contemporary standards, Wakefield was not satisfied. He wished to acquire an estate and enter Parliament, for which he lacked sufficient capital. Through deception he wed another wealthy heiress in 1826 when he abducted 15-year-old Ellen Turner, after luring her from school with a false message about her mother's health. Wakefield was brought to trial for the case known as the Shrigley abduction in 1826 and, along with his brother William, sentenced to three years in Newgate prison; the marriage, which had not been consummated, was dissolved by a special act of parliament.
Influence on British colonisation (1829–1843) Principles of "systematic colonisation" He turned his attention while in prison to colonial subjects, and considered the main causes of the slow progress of the Australian colonies in the enormous size of the landed estates, the reckless manner in which land was given away, the absence of all systematic effort at colonisation, and the consequent discouragement of immigration and dearth of labour. He proposed to remedy this state of things by the sale of land in small quantities at a sufficient price, and the employment of the proceeds as a fund for promoting immigration. These views were expressed in his Letter from Sydney (1829; published under a false name), published while he was still in prison, but often quoted as if written on the spot. He had published pamphlets in prison in 1828 under the title "Sketch of a Proposal for Colonising Australia", which received a lot of interest. Wakefield's utopian theorising on systematic colonial settlement policy in the early-19th century centred on economic considerations, but with a view to preserving class distinctions;
The National Colonization Society (also spelt National Colonisation Society) was created in 1830 in order to advocate for the type of "systematic colonisation" set out in Letter from Sydney, based on three principles: careful selection of emigrants; the concentration of settlers; and the sale of land at a fixed, uniform, "sufficient price", to provide funding for new settlers. Wakefield was a founder member, and Robert Gouger was elected (or appointed) inaugural secretary of the society, although he was later to fall out with Wakefield when they disagreed on the price that should be charged for land. Members over time included Robert Rintoul (editor of The Spectator), Charles Buller, John Stuart Mill, Sir William Molesworth, W. W. Whitmore, and Sir William Hutt. Jeremy Bentham supported the ideas of the society. Colonel Robert Torrens and Robert Wilmot-Horton were on the committee of the society. The society published The Outline of a Plan of a Colony, later expanded and elaborated upon by Wakefield.
In 1831, Lord Howick, Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office was won over by the idea of selling land at a fixed, uniform price, and based his "Ripon Regulations" on this principle, issued in February 1831, which abolished free land grants, replacing them with and land sales at public auction, set at a minimum price of five shillings per acre in the colony of New South Wales. PDF
After his Letter from Sydney in 1829, Wakefield's name became associated with other "scientific theories" of colonisation similar to his. People who accepted these ideas were usually on the side of the colonists, and were called "systematic colonisers," or (more commonly) "colonial reformers" and "radical imperialists," to highlight their Radical Whig political roots.
After his release Wakefield briefly turned his attention to social questions at home, and produced a tract on the Punishment of Death (1831), with a graphic picture of the condemned sermon in Newgate, and another on the rural districts, with an equally powerful exhibition of the degraded condition of the agricultural labourer. He soon, however, became entirely engrossed with colonial affairs.
South Australia
In 1831, having impressed John Stuart Mill, Robert Torrens and other leading economists with the value of his ideas, Wakefield became involved in various schemes to promote the colonisation of South Australia. He believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by overpopulation, and he saw emigration to the colonies as a useful safety valve. He set out to design a colonisation scheme with a workable combination of labourers, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants.
It took several attempts before the Province of South Australia was established. Although initially, Wakefield was a driving force, as it came closer to fruition, he was allowed less and less influence, with ally-turned-rival Robert Gouger eventually controlling execution of the scheme.
America However, he did not lose interest in colonisation as a tool for social engineering. In 1833 he published anonymously England and America, a work primarily intended to develop his own colonial theory, which is done in the appendix entitled "The Art of Colonization." The body of the work contains many new ideas, some of them reaching apparently extreme conclusions. It contains the distinct proposal that the transport of letters should be wholly free, and the prediction that, under given circumstances, the Americans would raise "cheaper corn than has ever yet been raised".
New Zealand Association Soon, a new project was under way, the New Zealand Association. In 1837 the Colonial Office gave the New Zealand Association a charter to promote settlement in New Zealand. However, they attached conditions that were unacceptable to the members of the Association. After considerable discussion, interest in the project waned. Wakefield was undoubtedly one of the most influential voices in the Association, but he discovered another interest, Canada.Richard Garnett, Edward Gibbon Wakefield: The Colonization of South Australia and New Zealand (Longmans, Green & Company, 1898).
Canada – 1838
In 1837, rebellions took place in both Lower Canada and Upper Canada. Colonial governments in both provinces suppressed the rebellions but did not resolve the underlying political discontent. In January 1838, the government of Lord Melbourne appointed Lord Durham as Governor General of all of British North America, to inquire into the causes of the rebellions and to make recommendations to settle the disputes. Durham was authorised to appoint his own advisors, and chose Wakefield as one of them. Durham knew Wakefield through Wakefield's plans for colonisation of New Zealand. He was a member of the New Zealand Association, set up by Wakefield ten years earlier to encourage emigration to New Zealand.Gerald M. Craig, Upper Canada – The Formative Years 1784–1841 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963), pp. 254–255.Fernand Ouellet, "Lambton, John George, 1st Earl of Durham", Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. VII (1836–1850), University of Toronto / Université Laval.H.J.M. Johnston, "Wakefield, Edward Gibbon", Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. VII (1836–1850), University of Toronto / Université Laval.
Durham was only prepared to accept the task if Wakefield accompanied him as Commissioner of Crown Lands. However, they both knew that Wakefield would be unacceptable to the British government, so Durham planned to announce the appointment only after he had reached Canada. Wakefield and his son, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, sailed secretly for Canada in April 1838. Before they arrived, word had leaked out, and London forbade his appointment. Durham appointed one of his other advisors, Charles Buller, as Commissioner, but he kept Wakefield as an unofficial unpaid representative, advisor and negotiator. Durham thus effectively gave Wakefield the same powers he would have had if he had been appointed but without being paid.
Wakefield's main task was analysis of the issue of public lands and the relationship of land to settlement. He prepared a detailed report on public lands. He said settlement could be encouraged by selling Crown lands at higher prices than had been the case up to then. This would attract immigrants with capital. This approach had been tried without much success in Upper Canada some years before. Wakefield's report on public lands became Appendix B to the Durham Report. No attempt was made to implement his policy proposals.Craig, Upper Canada – The Formative Years, pp. 140–141.