Felix Wakefield

Felix Wakefield ( * January 1807 in Tottenham, London, England; † December 23, 1875 in Sumner, Christchurch, New Zealand ) came from the family of Wakefield and was a land surveyor, lieutenant colonel in the British army and settler in South Australia and New Zealand.

The famous siblings were his brothers Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862), Daniel Bell Wakefield (1798-1858), Arthur Wakefield (1799-1843) and William Hayward Wakefield ( 1801-1848 ).

Life and work

As the seventh child of Edward Wakefield (1774-1854) and Susanna Crash (1767-1816), he grew up after the father had lost his farm in 1807 and lived in Westminster, London, mainly with his grandmother Priscilla ( Quaker and writer ( 1751 - 1832) ) in Tottenham, London. With the house of the grandmother his mother Susanna and some of his siblings lived in changing constellations. Felix was often sick as his mother Susanna and when she died in 1816, he and his two younger sisters Priscilla and Percy without right care.

In 1823 he left the age of 16 Tottenham Grammar School in London and then to work with his brother Daniel for his father. When his father went to Blois in France, he followed him, learned fluent French speaking and impregnated the maid Marie Felice Eliza Bailley that he finally had to get married in 1831 to pressure from his father before the birth of the child. Constance was then the first child of nine children, who should then until 1846 saw the light of day.

The pressure of his father must have well then also given the rash to emigrate in April 1832 Tasmania. In Hobart arrived, he was quite fast a job as assistant surveyor, lay down with the manager and then moved to Launceston in October 1833 to take a job as a surveyor from the government.

Critics described Felix Wakefield as erratic, moody, irritable, and given the persistent tendency to need to assert themselves and prevail. In his childhood, socially disadvantaged, he lacked the task of writing a decent English and formulate acceptable business letters. It was also rumored him to have little sense of money and to be dependent.

Knowing his brother wrote Edward Gibbon Wakefield of London from a long letter with tips and advice for Felix. However, in November 1835 in Launceston, the office was closed and Felix tried his hand at farming, odd jobs as a surveyor, as a country seller or worked for attorneys in real estate matters. All these efforts failed to prevent the financial decline and the family growth. Beginning in 1839, the fifth child on the way, he was also accused of erroneous land surveys. 1840, the family was nearly destitute, he tried twice in the gambling and won. With the money he could finance the litigation and was finally rehabilitated in July 1840.

In 1847, the ninth child was born, he left his wife Marie with the youngest child in Tasmania, went with the other eight children back to England and suddenly unexpectedly before his brother's house, penniless and rude as Edward Gibbon Wakefield later recalled. Marie went with her little daughter in October 1847 Adelaide and saw her husband Felix Wakefield never again. Three of her children, Murat, Salvator and Ariosto came around 1853/54 back to Australia, investigated and supported the mother.

Felix Wakefield received in the years 1847 to 1849 two attractive offers to go as a land surveyor to New Zealand, but refused each under the pressure of his brother Edward. This trusted the development of the New Zealand Company in these years and not kept his brother Felix, moreover, for not capable and experienced enough.

1851 took Felix to the third offer of John Robert Godley to come to Canterbury and to help you as a specialist in building. With six children Felix arrived in Lyttelton on 10 November 1851. Beginning of 1852 he left after disagreements with Godley Canterbury to go to Wellington. In the care of Constance, who at age 20 elders, he gave his children almost three years itself

In May 1855 returned to England, he joined as an engineer in the British army, was planning the construction of the military use of the Crimean railway from Balaklava to Sevastopol with that was then used as the initial strategic railway line go down in the history of the railway. After many military missions in 1859 he came back to London.

When his brother Edward died in Wellington on 16 May, 1862, he went legal action against his son Edward Jerningham Wakefield, to get a piece of land in Canterbury, which Edward Gibbon is said to have promised him. Edward Jerningham gave in and went to Felix, encouraged by Prime Minister Edward William Stafford to get a permanent residence status in 1863 returned to New Zealand in 1864 and settled on the farm land of his brother Edward Gibbon in Sumner in Christchurch.

In 1867 he went to Wellington to secure as secretary in various committees and commissions his livelihood. From July 1870 until his retirement in 1874, he worked as a clerk at the post office frustrated by Nelson and wrote letters to the Directorate to as a Wakefield but must send a better position and recognition of him. On December 23, 1875 Felix Wakefield died alone on his farm in Sumner of a heart attack.

Swell

• Philip Temple: A sort of conscience - The Wakefield. Auckland University Press, Auckland, New Zealand, 2002, ISBN 1-86940-276-6.
• An Encyclopedia of New Zealand 1966

• Military person (United Kingdom)
• Briton
• English
• Born in 1807
• Died in 1875
• Man