Wakefield, Edward Gibbon
Wakefield, Edward Gibbon ( 1796 – 1862 )British colonial reformer and writer. In 1829 he published his Letter from Sydney using information he had obtained while serving a sentence in Newgate gaol in London. Concerned that Australian settlements were failing because land could be acquired so easily, he proposed a ‘sufficient price’ for land, which would finance the regulated emigration of labourers and oblige them to work to buy their own land. This would give a balanced colonial society and provide some relief to unemployment in Britain. His ideas were taken up and implemented from 1831 , with some 70,000 migrants travelling to Australia in the next ten years. In 1837 Wakefield founded the New Zealand Association (later Company). He was largely responsible for the succession of...
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