The BOOKMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 731, 2 August 1929, Page 16

The BOOKMAN

Reviews Notes

Wakefield

A New Biography [lV'i-iHen for The Sun.] A BOOK which is likely to arouse a considerable amount of interest in New Zealand in the near future is a new biography of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the famous colonial reformer and founder of New Zealand and South Australia, written by his great-granddaughter, Miss Irma O’Connor, and published in London on Empire Day, May 24. The book is the outcome of a definite contract offered to Miss O’Connor by the London publishers, Selwyn and Blount, just before her departure for New Zealand after a three years* residence in England. Dr Harrop’s own able and authoritative biography of Wakefield was then just due to appear, but as neither he himself nor the publishers considered that the second book could in any way interfere with the first and as a more intimate and personal study of Wakefield was in any case required, the contract was accepted. Returning to New Zealand at the end of May last year. Miss O’Connor cast about for fresh sources of information, as the original material which had come into her possession through her grandfather, Jerningham Wakefield, or through relatives in England, had mostly been lent in the first instance to Dr Harrop. A little pocket diary, however, somewhat irregularly kept by Wakefield’s idolised girl-wife, Eliza (nde Pattlel, yet proved suffl cientlv illuminating to reveal tender and intimate glimpses of the radiantly happy married life of the young couple until it was abruptly terminated by Eliza’s tragic death. Four large portfolios of Wakefield’s letters, carefully preserved in the Christchurch Museum, also threw much fresh light not only on the character and personality, the mind and ideals of Wakefield himself, but also on his private life, his personal and family relationships, his many and varied political and literary activities on behalf of Australia. Canada and New Zealand, his prominence as the chief actor in the thrilling drama of the colonisation of New Zealand, the great part which he really played in the foundation of the Canterbury settlement. the work and inward history of the Canterbury Association in London, the real causes of the estrangement between Wakefield and Godlev, and the secret of the bitter enmity which later developed between the former and Sir George Grey. Copies of th - English Parliamentary Reports of 1836. 1840 and 1844. kindly lent by Sir Joseph Kinsey, of Christchurch. provided an additional store of information as to the nature and substance of the evidence submitted to the Parliamentary committee by Wakefield and others on the subject of New Zealand. In Wellington several original letters and a number of Wakefield’s own books and pamphlets in the Turnbull Library proved further valuable sources of knowledge, while the early Parliamentary records and newspaper files of 1853 and 1854, preserved in the General Assembly Library, also yielded much interesting

material relating to Wakefield’s short period of political activity in New Zealand during the stormy years of tiie first Provincial Councils and the first Parliament. Not the least interesting feature of the book is to be found in the illustrations. There is a charming portrait of Eliza Pattle. painted by the miniature artist. William Gwyhn. in 1S12; a quaint little picture of Wakefield’s two children. Nina and Jerningham, painted from a portrait by J. Mills; a likeness of his Quaker grandmother. Priscilla Wakefield, the foundress of savings banks: and a delightful child-study of his favourite sister. Catherine, later the wife of the Rev. C. M. Torlesse. many of whose descendants are still living in New Zealand A reproduction of the famous Gains borough picture of Edward and Priscilla Wakefield with the latter’s sister, Catherine Bell, is of particular interest, while* a unicnie nen and ink sketch of William Wakefield (afterwards a colonel of the First Regiment of Lancers and first agent of the New Zealand Land Company), as he appeared In the Court of K?n*’* Bench wearing the curious habiliments of the First Society of Europe, of which he was a member, was secured through the kindness of the Mitchell Library Sydney, being copied from a rare print in that institution bv a voung New Zealand artist, Mr Noel Cooknow of Sydnev A portrait of another of Wakefield’s brothers. Captain Arthur Wakefield, and one of his onlv son Jerningham. from an oil-paintire in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall. Wellington: a reproduction o* the picture of his cousin. Elizabeth talking to the women nrisoners in Newgate: the old weather-worn tablet erected to the memory of Colonel Wakefield in the Sydnev Street Cemeterv. Wellington: the marble bust of Wakefield himself in the Colonial Office. London: the fam ous picture of him with bis dogs painted by E J. Collins and Richard Ansdell. and now in a prominent posi ♦ ion in the Christchurch Museum—these and several others r.ll have thefv in the book “But it is as the intimate study of a vivid and vigorous personality that Miss O’Connor’s book will have its most poignant appeal,” says the “Morning Post,” London, in a lengthy review of the boob published on the day of its appearance. “It shows us how the great catastrophe of his life, the Turner abduction, for which he was imprisoned in Newgate—was the causa causans of a spiritual growth which was the secret of his subsequent success in handling men and mastering events. Only a great spirit could have gathered strength from such an appalling calamity, making it the starting-point of a new character and a new career, in which sympathy with the ‘under-dog’ and confidence in ’he possibilities of human nature when released from ancient servitudes were vom first to last the dominant motives Wakefield saw that the Empire vas England's only salvation, social, 'conomic and political, so he became he greatest of intellectual pioneers, vhose far-seeing plans set myriads of xes and ploughs to work.” As far as can be judged from such English reviews as have already come to hand, the new biography appears also to have attracted favourable comment on account of “its charm and

distinction of style,” while the critics em unanimous m acclaiming it not nly as “full of life” and unusually iteresting and "entertaining.” but Iso. to use Dr J. M Bulloch’s phrase s “a most sympathetic book.” G. McS. London.