Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield 1796-1862, British colonial statesman. He was attached to the British embassies in Turin (1814-16) and Paris (1820-26), but in 1826 was convicted of an attempt to marry an heiress by trickery. While in prison (1827-30) Wakefield prepared material for a book on capital punishment (pub. 1831) and studied colonial affairs. He evolved his important theory of systematic colonization, embodied in such works as A Letter from Sydney (1829) and A View of the Art of Colonization (1849). Concerned by the problems of increasing population, with resultant poverty and crime, he advocated the settlement of the colonies by ordinary citizens rather than by transported convicts. He argued that land should be sold in small lots at a moderate fixed price instead of given away (the funds thus gathered to be used to support further colonization), and some self-government should be allowed. These influential ideas led to the founding (1834) of the South Australian Association and the establishment of the South Australian colony. Wakefield accompanied (1838) Lord Durham to Canada as an adviser and influenced Durham's report on Canadian government. In 1839 he founded the New Zealand Land Company, which colonized part of that territory. He went to New Zealand in 1852 and entered into politics there, but suffered a complete breakdown in 1854.

Bibliography: See his collected works, ed. by M. F. Lloyd Prichard (1968); biographies by I. O'Connor (1929) and P. Bloomfield (1961); R. C. Mills, The Colonization of Australia (1915, repr. 1968).

Wakefield, Edward Gibbon (1796–1862). Wakefield, whose father and uncle were authors, was a wild youth who demanded to be removed from Westminster School, disliked Edinburgh High School, and made a runaway marriage with a ward of Chancery. Released from that scrape by the death of his wife, he attempted a second runaway match with a schoolgirl and was sent to gaol for three years. On his release he took up the cause of colonization, urging emigration to Australia and pointing out that the policy of granting free lands produced an acute shortage of labour. In 1838 Wakefield accompanied Lord Durham on his mission to Canada and had considerable influence on the final report. He then transferred his interest to New Zealand, organizing a company to send out settlers and contributing to the formal annexation of that country in 1840. In 1852 he left for New Zealand but suffered a final breakdown a year after his arrival. Wakefield's achievement was to encourage a more systematic and coherent attitude towards colonial development.

J. A. Cannon