Edward Gibbon Wakefield, kidnapper & father of South Australia

I just finished reading a book called The Shrigley Abduction I found out about on one of my Wikipedia spirals a few months ago, you know where you start out reading one article and end up a thousand miles away.  I bought the book because I thought the story was interesting and wanted to know more.

Here's the story in brief, in 1827 Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 30, tricks Ellen Turner, 15, into leaving her school with a story about her mother being ill.  Instead of taking her to her mother he takes her towards the Scottish border and tells her that her father's business will fail and he will go to jail if she doesn't marry Wakefield.  The girl agrees and they marry in Scotland where marriages under 21 are legal without parental consent.  The couple then travel to London, then to France.  The hope is that the girl's parents will accept the marriage to avoid a scandal (because of course Ellen has been in the presence of a man for a week and will be unmarriable, they haven't had sex, Wakefield even signs an affidavit to this effect but the hint that they may have would taint her reputation), and Wakefield would be heir to the Turner estate.  Instead of agreeing Ellen's father goes to the police and has Wakefield charged with abduction, the girl is returned to her parents, Wakefield goes to jail and the marriage is annulled.  Ellen goes on to make a good marriage at the age of 16 and dies in childbirth at 19.  Wakefield uses his time in prison to write "A View of the Art of Colonization" which is an amazingly influential book that pathed the way for the end of convict transportation and the founding of South Australia...

Wait, what?

Well South Australia, unlike the other colonies was founded by free settlers who bought land in England then sailed to South Australia to found the settlement.

Yeah I know that.

So it was this guy's idea, the idea that since the other colonies were struggling to find labor there needed to be another way of doing it, he didn't have a lot to do with the actual planning but it was essentially his plan.

So, Wakefield Street, Port Wakefield, the Electoral division Wakefield all named after this guy?

Well some of them may have been named after each other but yeah. He then went on to found the New Zealand Company and his brother organized the purchase of the area that is now Wellington from the Maoris.

His brother who helped him kidnap the girl and also went to prison.

The very same.  So William went on to be one of the main driving forces behind the settlement of Wellington and Edward eventually moved to New Zealand and became an MP there.


I have a degree in Australian Studies and History.

Yeah I know that, I am you weirdo.


So how the hell am I just learning about this now?

What do you mean?

You don't think that the fact that the guy who thought up South Australia, where I grew up, where I studied history and Australian Studies in high school and university, was a kidnapper and a rapist is an interesting tidbit of information?

Well he wasn't a rapist, they never had sex, he just tricked her into marriage then took her to a foreign country trying to steal her fortune.


Sorry, not a rapist. My point is that this story seems pretty interesting. And being that Australian history gets accused of being boring, especially by the 16yr olds forced to study it especially those in South Australia where the settlement story actually IS boring, you'd think that maybe this would be a story that is more widely known.


Hmm, yeah, like maybe it would be more famous than having to find out about it in an obscure and frankly kind of badly written book?


Exactly.