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| Edward Gibbons Wakefield's rightful place in South Australian history is difficult to gauge. Should he be accredited for the foundations of South Australia or not? His theory of Systematic Colonization was used a a basis for the establishement of South Australia. Although it was not followed to the letter it was used as a guideline. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wakefield was born on 20th March, 1796 in London, the second of nine children. He was educated at Westminster School and Edinburgh High School. After completing his education Wakefield entered diplomatic service. At one stage he was secretary to the British Envoy in Turin. In 1816 at the age of 20 he eloped with Eliza Prattle, a ward of the chancery, Eliza was also a wealthy heiress. The marriage was said to be happy and Eliza had two children. The youngest was just ten days old when Eliza passed away in 1820. Eliza's death left Wakefield a wealthy man. In 1826 Wakefield forged a letter which induced a 15 year old school girl and heiress, Ellen Turner, to elope with him. Ellen's family were horrified and set out in search of the couple. They were traced to Calais in France and persuaded to return to Britain. The marriage was annulled and Wakefield was imprisioned for three years on abduction charges to be served at Newgate Gaol. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "The object is not to place a scattered and half barbarous colony on the coast of New Holland, but to establish a wealthy civilised society" (Edward Gibbon Wakefield 1829) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| When Wakefield entered Newgate Gaol he became interested in the plight of the convict, especially the transported convict. He began to critically assess the use of transportation as a form of punishment. He questioned the lives and prospects of the convict sent to these new lands. In a anonymous letter published under the title "A letter from Sydney" in the "London Morning Chronicle" on 21st August, 1829, Wakefield claimed to solve the British problem with colonization, his answer was systematic colonization. The British Government had noted that it was facing problems with the colonization of Australia at the time, New South Wales was backward when compered to Canada or South Africa. In Western Australia the granting of land had not be the success the governement has hoped it would be. Later in 1829 Wakefield published a pamphlet of twelve letters "A Letter from Sydney, the principle town of Australia" edited by Rober Gouger, a friend of Wakefields. This pamphlet caused an outrage in Sydney. "The object is not to place a scattered and half barbarous colony on the coast of New Holland, but to establish a wealthy civilised society" Wakefield wrote. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In 1830 Wakefield together with Robert Gouger formed the National Colonization Society. Wakefield's theory of Systematic Colonization had a number of points; | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Self Government once the population reached 50,000. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Land was to be sold at a price set high enough to ensure it was landowners who bought the land and not labourers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The money from the sale of the land would then be used to bring out people to work as labourers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| There would be two classes of people. This would encourage the right class of landowner. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The people brought out would be both male and female to ensure a balance of the sexes and to solve the problems that already existed in other states of Australia, where there was a high male ratio of population. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The labourers would be paid enough to be able to save and to later buy their own land. This step was important, it would give them a reason to stay in the new settlement, a problem that had effected Western Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| No convict labour was to be used. Paid Labour was better than free labour, convicts in Wakefield's opinion only work enough to keep out of trouble. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The British Government thought the plan too radical, especially the idea of Self-Government, prior to that South Australia would be considered, like all the other states in Australia, as just another Province or county. It would be called "Province of South Australia". In 1831 the National Colonization Society disbanded. Wakefield approached a group of Whig Bankers to set up the South Australian Land Company. After a long delay the colonial office rejected the scheme. The society never eventuated. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In 1834 the House of Commons passed the "South Australian Colonization Act". This act allowed the new settlement to be established. When the South Australian Commission was established to encourage investment in South Australia it became the largest land owner. Until this time land sales in South Australia had been low, even though the price set per acre was only half of Wakefield's requested price. This action angered Wakefield and he would have nothing more to do with the settlement. Wakefield also did not support the principles of Torrens, the Chairman of the South Australian Colonization Commission. Soon Wakefield found his interests lay in other areas. In December 1836 he offered himself as a parliamentary candidate for Birmingham, but he soon withdrew. He looked to New Zealand as a place to try out his colonization theory, but at this stage, the fact that the South Australian settlement was not proving successful went against him, even though they had not used Wakefield's theory to the letter, but in essence had used parts of it. In 1838 he toured Canada with Lord Durham for six months. Wakefield still saw New Zealand as the perfect opportunity to prove his theory. In defiance of the Government Wakefield himself took action. In May 1839, the Government proclaimed New Zealand as part of the British Empire. In 1853 Wakefield migrated to New Zealand in ill health, after suffering a mild stroke in 1846. He was to be elected into local politics in a brief career that led to his unpopularity. Wakefield died in Wellington on the 16th, May 1862. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| South Australian in the meantime has been though turbulent times. In just two years after its intial settlement in 1836, most of the land was still not being cultivated. A large majority of the people lived in Adelaide, it's capital city. There was widespread unemployment. The South Australian Colonization Act gave control of the colony to the Colonial Office and the management of land sales and immigration to the Board of Commissioner. The people in charge of these offices, Governor John Hindmarsh and James Fisher, the resident commissioner disagreed with the way things should be run. South Australian was doomed to be tugged two different ways by two different authorities. It was not until 1838 when George Gawler was sent out to replace Hindmarsh that things started to improve. In the 1840s wheat exports grew copper was discovered and South Australia boomed to be at one stage the richest state in Australia. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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