Edward Gibbon Wakefield - Wakefield in New Zealand

Wakefield in New Zealand

The ship arrived at Port Lyttelton in 2 February 1853. Wakefield had travelled with Henry Sewell who had been deputy chairman and full time manager of the Canterbury Association. It seems likely that he expected to be welcomed as a founding father of the colony; to be feted and immediately asked to assume the leadership of colony. However colonisation had inevitably changed the perspectives of the people of Canterbury. Many of them felt they had been let down and cheated by the Association and the two arrivals were firmly linked in their minds with the broken promises and disappointments of the Association.

James Edward FitzGerald, who was one of the leaders of Canterbury and who was elected as Superintendent of the Canterbury Province a few months later (in July 1853), declined to meet with Wakefield for some days and certainly was not willing to relinquish control to someone he probably saw as a tainted politician from London.

Within a very short time Wakefield was completely disenchanted with Canterbury. He claimed the citizens were far too parochial in their outlook; they were far more concerned with domestic issues rather than national politics. Clearly they were not worthy of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and after only one month he left Canterbury and sailed for Wellington.

There was enough political ferment in Wellington to satisfy even Wakefield. Governor George Grey had just proclaimed self government for New Zealand but it was a watered down version of it, significantly less "self-government" than was described in the New Zealand Constitution Act of the year before. In his own way George Grey was every bit as unscrupulous as Wakefield and he had very firm ideas on what was good for New Zealand. They were not necessarily bad ideas but they were different from Wakefield's. It seems likely that even before they met both men knew they would clash.

When they arrived in Wellington, Wakefield declined to go ashore until he knew he was going to be properly received by the Governor. Grey promptly left town. Sewell went ashore and met up with various dignitaries including Daniel Bell Wakefield, another of the brothers who had been in Wellington for some years practising law and was Attorney General of the Province. He also managed to get an address of welcome for Wakefield, written by Isaac Featherston and signed by many of the citizens.

Wakefield went on the attack almost as soon as he landed. He took issue with George Grey on his policy on land sales. Grey was in favour of selling land very cheaply to encourage the flow of settlers. Wakefield wanted to keep the price of land high so that the growth of the colony could be financed by land sales, it was a fundamental tenet of his colonial theory. He and Sewell applied for an injunction to prevent the Commissioner of Crown Lands selling any further lands under Governor Grey's regulations. Unfortunately the Crown Commissioner was Wakefield's second cousin, Francis Dillon Bell, early New Zealand really was a Wakefield family business.

Within a month of arriving in Wellington Wakefield was leading the attacks on George Grey, they began a campaign in London to have him recalled not knowing he had already applied to leave the colony. Meanwhile Grey was in control. He responded to the attacks on him by questioning Wakefield's integrity, always an easy target. Particularly he focussed on the generous fees that had been paid to Wakefield as a Director of the New Zealand Company at a time when it was reneging on its debts in New Zealand. This served to remind the people of Wellington just how badly they had been let down by the Company and how angry they felt about it. Wakefield managed to clear himself of the actual charges but a great deal of dirt was thrown around.