Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 1796 – 16 May 1862) was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand.

Wakefield, who in 1816 married Eliza Pattle (1799–1820), was the eldest son of Edward Wakefield (1774–1854) and Susanna Crash (1767–1816).

He is mentioned and criticised in Chapter 33 of Karl Marx's Das Kapital (Volume 1) and similarly in Henry George's How to Help the Unemployed. He was imprisoned for three years in 1827 for kidnapping.

Early life

Born in London, Great Britain, in 1796, Wakefield was educated in London and Edinburgh. He was the brother of William Hayward Wakefield, of Arthur Wakefield and Felix Wakefield.

He served as a King's Messenger, carrying diplomatic mail all about Europe during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars, both before and after the decisive Battle of Waterloo. In the year 1816 he ran off with a Miss Eliza Pattle and they were subsequently married in Edinburgh. It appears to have been a "love match", but no doubt the fact that she was a wealthy heiress did "sweeten the pot", with Edward receiving a marriage settlement of £70,000, with the prospect of more when Eliza turned twenty-nine.

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon (/ˈɡɪbən/; 8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organized religion.

Early life: 1737–1752

Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. He had six siblings: five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, also named Edward, had lost all of his assets as a result of the South Sea Bubble stock market collapse in 1720, but eventually regained much of his wealth, so that Gibbon's father was able to inherit a substantial estate.

As a youth, Gibbon's health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse". At age nine, he was sent to Dr. Woddeson's school at Kingston upon Thames (now Kingston Grammar School), shortly after which his mother died. He then took up residence in the Westminster School boarding house, owned by his adored "Aunt Kitty", Catherine Porten. Soon after she died in 1786, he remembered her as rescuing him from his mother's disdain, and imparting "the first rudiments of knowledge, the first exercise of reason, and a taste for books which is still the pleasure and glory of my life". By 1751, Gibbon's reading was already extensive and certainly pointed toward his future pursuits: Laurence Echard's Roman History (1713), William Howel(l)'s An Institution of General History (1680–85), and several of the 65 volumes of the acclaimed Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time (1747–1768).

Wakefield

Coordinates: 53°40′48″N 1°29′31″W / 53.6801°N 1.4920°W / 53.6801; -1.4920

Wakefield is a city in West Yorkshire, England, on the River Calder and the eastern edge of the Pennines, which had a population of 76,886 in 2001.

Wakefield was dubbed the "Merrie City" in the Middle Ages and in 1538 John Leland described it as, "a very quick market town and meately large; well served of fish and flesh both from sea and by rivers ... so that all vitaile is very good and chepe there. A right honest man shall fare well for 2d. a meal. ... There be plenti of se coal in the quarters about Wakefield".

The Battle of Wakefield took place in the Wars of the Roses and it was a Royalist stronghold in the Civil War. Wakefield became an important market town and centre for wool, exploiting its position on the navigable River Calder to become an inland port.

In the 18th century, Wakefield traded in corn, coal mining and textiles and in 1888 its parish church acquired cathedral status. It became the county town and seat of the West Riding County Council in 1889 and the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Council from 1974 until it was dissolved in 1986.

Norman Arthur Wakefield

Norman Arthur Wakefield (28 November 1918 – 23 September 1972) was an Australian teacher, naturalist, paleontologist and botanist, notable as an expert on ferns. He described many new species of plants.

Wakefield was born in Romsey, Victoria, and educated at state schools in Orbost and at Scotch College, Melbourne with a BSc in biology. He joined the Victorian Education Department in 1934 and served as a teacher in various parts of East Gippsland.

During the Second World War Wakefield served with the Australian Army in Papua and New Guinea (1943–1944) and on Bougainville (1944–1945). He returned from his war service with a collection of ferns now housed in the British Museum and the National Herbarium of Victoria.

From 1955 to 1965 he lectured in natural history and science at the Melbourne Teachers’ College. In 1960 he graduated as a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne, and in 1969 completed a MSc in paleontology at Monash University, as well as lecturing in biology at Monash Teachers’ College.

Wakefield (MBTA station)

Wakefield is a station on the Haverhill Line commuter rail line of the MBTA. This station services nearby Wakefield Square. It is officially located at 225 North Avenue, according to the MBTA. However the actual location is across the tracks, which run parallel to North Avenue. The station is also described by some as being located at 27-29 Tuttle Street, which runs behind the station between Albion and Chestnut Streets.

Wakefield Station was originally built in 1889 by the Boston and Maine Railroad, as Wakefield Upper Depot. Another former B&M station built in the 1950s is located to the north on the corner of Tuttle and Chestnut Streets, and a former freight house built by B&M sometime around 1845 can be found south of Wakefield Square along North Avenue. The 1950s station house is now a law office, and the station operates from sheltered platforms in front of the B&M Depot, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

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