Book review

A sort of Conscience. The Wakefields.

This is not a new book, however it is available from the library and with the current discussion on revision of how our history will be taught a timely one to read, or re-read.  Philip Temple’s  history of the Wakefield family is in all likelihood the definitive book on this family who had so much to do with  the early pākehā settlement.

Philip Temple’s book covers three generation of the Wakefield family in minute detail. In the Forward he explains that he had expected the project to take up to three years however it ended up taking eleven. Thankfully his writing skill resulted in a book reading as an enthralling novel rather than the dry historical tome it may have been under lesser hands. 

Once famed as New Zealand founding fathers the Wakefields have in the last fifty years to become seen as arch villains.  Philip dispassionately sets out all the facts in considerable detail. As I read it  Edward senior and Edward Gibbon were not nice men at all. Edward Gibbon was a hyper active ‘ideas man’ who seemed to consider that ends always justified the means. He had no qualms about selling sections of land he didn’t own in a land he had never visited to prospective settlers.  

  However his brothers William and Arthur and son Edward Jerningham seemed to be reasonable men. These were the Wakefields who actually came to New Zealand to organise the venture and were up against impossible odds from the start. 

Even with the best will in the world their ‘negotiations’ to purchase land were doomed to failure, Neither side understood the other, Māori culture did not include the concept of individual land ownership. Neither understood the other’s language, the ‘interpreter’, whaler dickie Barrett, only knew pigeon Māori and had only basic reading skill, he could not understand the documents William wanted the Māori to sign so could not adequately explain William’s offer. 

Ship loads of settlers arrived to find that there were no sections or infrastructure and the land was completely different the English gently rolling countryside which had been described 

Added to this were numerous other people with agendas involved, many motivated by their own desire to get land. This further complicated by the later arrival from Auckland of incompetent and pompous government officials. 

The New Zealand Company was eventually declared bankrupt. Arthur was killed by Te Rangihaeata at Wairau.  William gave up and retired to his house above Wellington and Edward Jerningham returned to England. 

Despite this disastrous result the company had been responsible for the initial setting up of settlements at Wellington , New Plymouth, Nelson and Christchurch.

This book is highly recommended, both as a good exciting read and as a fair and accurate account of an important part of our history. Allow plenty of time this is a substantial book.

Mike Beckett