A Sort of Conscience: The WakefieldsAt once notorious and visionary, Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his brothers played a key but controversial role in the early British settlement of New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Once famed as New Zealand's 'Founding Fathers', they have since become the arch-villains of all post-colonial scenarios of the past. Deciding that neither myth made good historical sense, Philip Temple saw that, astonishingly, there was no adequate biography of the family most responsible for the establishment of the Wellington, Nelson and Canterbury settlements. In stitching together a net of letters and documents, Temple has produced the most comprehensive account yet of the Wakefield family's role in colonial development and selfgovernment across the old Commonwealth. He follows not only the brothers' careers but also establishes the role of the Wakefield women and gives extensive accounts of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's first elopement and his later abduction of Ellen Turner. Temple follows Edward Gibbon's tortuous career through colonial politics from the 1830s to the 1850s and shows how his brothers and son strongly influenced, for good and bad, the founding of new nations. This engaging narrative, wri |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
This Mottled World 17911827 | 7 |
The Matriarch and Her Sons | 8 |
Ten Years Too Early | 33 |
The Best Boy in the World | 44 |
It Might Make One in Love with Death | 54 |
By Hook or By Crook | 70 |
To Pick the Fathers Pocket | 89 |
They would extort the masts out of the ship | 242 |
Hobsons Choice | 282 |
Nursed in Blood | 299 |
Cui Bono? | 323 |
Utu Postponed | 351 |
The New Zealand War | 373 |
He is but cold earth | 391 |
A Highly Excitable Temperament | 411 |
Forward Forward Let Us Range 18281839 | 113 |
This Black Place | 114 |
A Castle in the Air | 126 |
Life as Propaganda | 136 |
A Long and Sore Trial | 149 |
Down the Ringing Grooves of Change | 164 |
Strangers to their Family | 177 |
The Ingenious Projector | 188 |
I would die in your service | 209 |
Possess Yourselves of the Soil | 223 |
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Common terms and phrases
arrived Arthur association ATL qMS Auckland August Bagot Beauharnois BL Place Papers British brother Buller Canada Canadian Canterbury Captain Catherine Chapman Charles Charles Buller chief Colonial Office committee company's Cook Strait daughter death Durham Edward Gibbon Wakefield Edward Wakefield EGW to EW EGW wrote EGW's Ellen Ellice emigration Emily England EW to Frances father Felix FitzGerald FitzRoy Frances Davies Francis Place friends Garnett Godley Godley's Governor Grey Grey's Hobson Hutt Ibid Jerningham John labourers land later letter London Lord Lyttelton Maori marriage meeting missionary Molesworth months natives Nelson never Ngati Toa Nina Pakeha Parliament political Port Nicholson Priscilla purchase Rangihaeata Rauparaha reform Revans Rintoul settlement settlers Sewell ship soon South Australia Stafford Te Rangihaeata Te Rauparaha told Torlesse Tory Turner Wairau Wellington William write young Zealand Company