William Wakefield
William Hayward Wakefield ( born August 8, 1801 in Burnham Wick, Essex, England; † September 19, 1848 in Wellington, New Zealand ) came from the family of Wakefield and was lieutenant colonel and later a leading representative of the New Zealand Company, leader of the first successful expedition to New Zealand and founder of Wellington.
Life and work
His most famous brothers were Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862), Daniel Bell Wakefield (1798-1858) and Arthur Wakefield ( 1799-1843 ). His father Edward Wakefield (1774-1854) was a surveyor and real estate agents. After his mother, Susanna (b. crash ) died in 1817, he grew up primarily by his grandmother Priscilla in Tottenham, London. After his education at Tottenham Grammar School he went to Turin, where he worked at the British Embassy, where his older brother Edward was busy.
In 1826 he had for complicity in the forced marriage of the heiress Ellen Turner by his brother Edward for three years in prison of Lancaster Castle.
After his release, he traveled extensively Austria, Lapland and Russia. In 1832 he became a mercenary in the service of Dom Pedro and fought in the Portuguese Miguelistenkrieg ( 1832-1834 ). As a captain, he joined in 1835 as a British mercenary in the British Foreign Legion, only to fight in the Spanish First Carlist for Queen Isabella II. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he commanded 1837 the third Spanish Legion and was finally beaten for his military merits of the Queen Isabella II knighted.
After the end of Carlistenkriegs Wakefield interested in the activities of the New Zealand Company, in which his brother Edward worked. When his brother Arthur Wakefield refused to work as a chief representative of the New Zealand Company in New Zealand, he took over this task. On May 12, 1839, he sailed with the Tory from London towards New Zealand to establish the first settlement of the New Zealand Company at Port Nicholson, later to Wellington. He bought plenty of land on both sides of Cook Strait and made in November 1839 the ownership of the land in the Hokianga claims that the had bought the first New Zealand Company in 1825.
Wakefield had to solve two difficult tasks in the new branch. As a responsible agent of the New Zealand Company, he had to bear the decisions taken in London and implement. For one, he was responsible for the purchase of land, the allocation of land to the settlers, the support of newcomers in the settlement and the right personnel management his company on site. On the other hand, since the aim of the British Government in relation to New Zealand was not clear, he was forced to set up a transitional administration in the newly founded Wellington with all the uncertainties. He was so unofficially the political leader of the Administration Committee of Wellington.
With the British annexation of New Zealand and concluded on February 6, 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi, the management committee was disbanded and represent the right through the set up by the British Government Governor William Hobson. From then on, Wakefield stood between the interests of the settlers and those of the British government. The dubious land purchases by the New Zealand Company in the past and the investigation of claims of ownership by the governor were to the problem of Wakefield and he represented New Zealand Company.
In Wakefield's leadership, the New Zealand company founded more settlements such as Kapiti Coast ( 1839), Wanganui (1840 ), New Plymouth ( 1841), Nelson ( 1842) and Dunedin ( 1848). Wakefield was also responsible for their mismanagement, which finally in 1845 led to the near- bankruptcy of the Company and the financial intervention by the British government in addition to the dubious practices of the New Zealand Company. The final out of the Company in 1858 did not live to Wakefield. He died on September 19, 1848 in Wellington from a stroke.