commenced when he accepted the post of private secretary to Lord Durham on the latter’s appointment as special commissioner to Canada. The Durham Report, the charter of constitutional government in the colonies, though drawn up by Charles Buller, embodied the ideas of Wakefield, and the latter was the means of its being given prematurely to the public through The Times, to prevent its being tampered with by the government. He acted in the same spirit a few months later, when (about July 1839), understanding that the authorities intended to prevent the despatch of emigrants to New Zealand, he hurried them off on his own responsibility, thus compelling the government to annex the country just in time to anticipate a similar step on the part of France. For several years Wakefield continued to direct the New Zealand Company, fighting its battles with the colonial office and the missionary interest, and secretly inspiring and guiding many parliamentary committees on colonial subjects, especially on the abolition of transportation. The company was by no means a financial success, and many of its proceedings were wholly unscrupulous and indefensible; its great object, however, was attained, and New Zealand became the Britain of the south. In 1846 Wakefield, exhausted with labour, was struck down by apoplexy, and spent more than a year in complete retirement, writing during his gradual recovery his Art of Colonization. The management of the company had meanwhile passed into the hands of others, whose sole object was to settle accounts with the government, and wind up the undertaking. Wakefield seceded, and joined Lord Lyttelton and John Robert Godley in establishing the Canterbury settlement as a Church of England colony. A portion of his correspondence on this subject was published by his son as The Founders of Canterbury (Christchurch, 1868). As usual with him, however, he failed to retain the confidence of his coadjutors to the end. In 1853, after the grant of a constitution to New Zealand, he took up his residence in the colony, and immediately began to act a leading part in colonial politics. In 1854 he appeared in the first New Zealand parliament as extra-official adviser of the acting governor, a position which excited great jealousy, and as the mover of a resolution demanding the appointment of a responsible ministry. It was carried unanimously, but difficulties, which will be found detailed in W. Swainson’s New Zealand and its Colonization (ch. 12), prevented its being made effective until after the mover’s retirement from political life. In December 1854, after a fatiguing address to a public meeting, followed by prolonged exposure to a south-east gale, his constitution entirely broke down. He spent the rest of his life in retirement, dying at Wellington on the 16th of May 1862. His only son, Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1820–1879), was a New Zealand politician. Three of Wakefield’s brothers were also interested in New Zealand. After serving in the Spanish army William Hayward Wakefield (1803–1848) emigrated to New Zealand in 1839. As an agent of the New Zealand Land Company he was engaged in purchasing enormous tracts of land from the natives, but the company’s title to the greater part of this was later declared invalid. He remained in New Zealand until his death on the 19th of September 1848. Arthur Wakefield (1799–1843), who was associated with his brother in these transactions about land, was killed during a fight with some natives at Wairau on the 17th of June 1843. The third brother was Felix Wakefield (1807–1875), an engineer.
Wakefield was a man of large views and lofty aims, and in private life displayed the warmth of heart which commonly accompanies these qualities. His main defect was unscrupulousness: he hesitated at nothing necessary to accomplish an object, and the conviction of his untrustworthiness gradually alienated his associates, and left him politically powerless. Excluded from parliament by the fatal error of his youth, he was compelled to resort to indirect means of working out his plans by influencing public men. But for a tendency to paradox, his intellectual powers were of the highest order, and as a master of nervous idiomatic English he is second to Cobbett alone. After every deduction it remains true that no contemporary showed equal genius as a colonial statesman, or in this department rendered equal service to his country.
For an impartial examination of the Wakefield system, see Leroy-Beaulieu, De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes (3rd ed. pp. 562–575 and 696–700). See also R. Garnett’s Life of Wakefield (1898). (R. G.)
WAKEFIELD, GILBERT (1756–1801), English classical scholar and politician, was born at Nottingham on the 22nd of February 1756. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (fellow, 1776). In 1778 he took orders, but in the following year quitted the church and accepted the post of classical tutor at the Nonconformist academy at Warrington, which he held till the dissolution of the establishment in 1783. After leaving Warrington, he took private pupils at Nottingham and other places, and also occupied himself with literary work. His most important production at this period was the first part of the Silva critics, the design of which was the “illustration of the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome.” In 1790 he was appointed professor of classics at the newly-founded Unitarian college at Hackney, but his proposed reforms and his objection to religious observances led to unpleasantness and to his resignation in the following year. From this time he supported himself by his pen. His edition of Lucretius, a work of high pretensions and little solid performance, appeared in 1796–1799, and gained for the editor a very exaggerated reputation (see Munro’s Lucretius, i. pp. 19, 20). His light-hearted criticism of Porson’s edition of the Hecuba was avenged by the latter’s famous toast: “Gilbert Wakefield; what’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?” About this time Wakefield, who hated Pitt and condemned war as utterly unchristian, abandoned literature for political and religious controversy. After assailing with equal bitterness writers so entirely opposed as William Wilberforce and Thomas Paine, in January 1798 he “employed a few hours” in drawing up a reply to Bishop Watson’s Address to the People of Great Britain, written in defence of Pitt and the war and the new “tax upon income.” He was charged with having published a seditious libel, convicted in spite of an eloquent defence, and imprisoned for two years in Dorchester gaol. A considerable sum of money was subscribed by the public, sufficient to provide for his family upon his death, which took place on the 9th of September 1801. While in prison he corresponded on classical subjects with Charles James Fox, the letters being subsequently published.
See the second edition of his Memoirs (1804). The first volume is autobiographical; the second, compiled by J. T. Rutt and A. Wainewright, includes several estimates of his character and performances from various sources, the most remarkable being one by Dr Parr; see also Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1801); Henry Crabb Robinson’s Diary (3rd ed., 1872); John Aikin in Aiken’s General Biography (1799–1815).
WAKEFIELD, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 17512 m. N.N.W. from London. Pop. (1901) 41,413. It is served by the Great Northern, Midland and Great Central railways (Westgate station), and the Lancashire and Yorkshire and North-Eastern railways (Kirkgate station), the Great Northern Company using both stations. It lies on the river Calder, mainly on the north bank, in a pleasant undulating country, towards the eastern outskirts of the great industrial district of the West Riding. The river is crossed by a fine bridge of eight arches on which stands the chapel of St Mary, a beautiful structure 50 ft. long by 25 wide, of the richest Decorated character. Its endowment is attributed to Edward IV., in memory of his father Richard, duke of York, who fell at the battle of Wakefield (1460). It was completely restored in 1847. In 1888 the bishopric of Wakefield was formed, almost entirely from that of Ripon, having been sanctioned in 1878. The diocese includes about one-seventh of the parishes of Yorkshire, and also covers a very small portion of Lancashire. The cathedral church of All Saints occupies a very ancient site, but only slight traces of buildings previous to the 14th century can be seen. In the early part of that century the church was almost rebuilt, and was consecrated by Archbishop William de Melton in 1329. Further great alterations took place in the 15th century, and the general effect of the building as it stands is Perpendicular. The church consists of a clerestoried nave and choir, with a western tower; the eastward extension
