My decision to end the book when I did, with the marriage of Margaret to James Jackson, was based on my search for her on the Ancestors site - census details and births, deaths and marriage records. In 1851, she is listed as working with her sisters in Disley. In 1861 she is listed as working in Altrincham as an assistant post mistress, and living in the home of her employer John Balshaw. In the 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses there is no mention of her.

I decided that this meant that she had either married, sometime between 1861-1871 or she had died. There was no report of anyone of her name from that area dying in those years, so I decided she must have married.

There were two Margaret Forbes who got married in that period in the Manchester area, and the one I decided that she would marry was James Jackson, although I have no proof of this. I have not taken the time and effort it would involve to confirm whether or not my guess was accurate.

However, I did find a death of a Margaret Jackson, of the right age and in the right place, the following year, so from that, I am assuming that she might have died in childbirth.

I did not do a thorough job of describing Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s life after he moved to New Zealand, as I felt that the main thrust of my story was during those years when he was (supposedly) carrying on a correspondence with Margaret’s father. I could have added another 10 chapters and still not done justice to all that he did in his life, but perhaps the reader will feel, as I do, that it was enough for you to get the general impression of the sort of man he was.

This is taken from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography by Miles Fairburn.

The driving force in Edward Gibbon Wakefield's life was his appetite for power and influence. As a child he was brought up under 'extreme habits of liberty'. This lax environment fostered a love and an aptitude for bending the will of others through obstinacy, charm and fast talking.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield's public disgrace after he was imprisoned for abduction, was the turning point in his life. While in prison at Newgate he read the classical economists, the utilitarians, and on social questions for the first time. From these sources he drew the material for his instantly acclaimed theory on colonisation, published anonymously in instalments, 'Letters from Sydney', in the Morning Chronicle between August and October 1829, and as a book, A letter from Sydney , appearing at the end of 1829. While he was still in prison, the Spectator in April, 1830, published his 'Cure and prevention of pauperism, by means of systematic colonisation', and he wrote two tracts on crime and punishment which were published after his release.

His colonisation theory, later restated in England and America in 1833, and in A view of the art of colonization in 1849, had the 'sufficient price' as its governing category. The 'sufficient price' was the price at which the Crown needed to sell its colonial 'waste land' so as to restrict the speed with which colonial wage-earners could become proprietors, as well as to build up a fund which would permit the greatest possible number of wage-earners to emigrate free of charge to the colonies.

The real problem with the 'sufficient price', however, was that it had to serve two purposes which were not necessarily compatible; the costs of sustaining the appropriate level of free immigration may have required a 'sufficient price' quite different from that needed to keep the average labourer landless for the prescribed period.

In practical terms, the linchpin of the scheme was its reliance on the willingness of investors to buy 'waste land' at a 'sufficient price', to improve it, and for it to make a decent return: Wakefield assumed that vigorous promotion of the colonies and their abundant natural resources would fulfil these conditions but experience frequently proved otherwise. Much criticism, too, has been directed at Wakefield's neglect of the rights and welfare of indigenous peoples.

Wakefield's ideas secured the backing of Robert Rintoul, the editor of the Spectator, and it was through this connection that Wakefield, after his release from prison in May 1830, was introduced to a collection of young and reputable intellectuals, including Charles Buller and other MPs, whom he won over to his views. Later known as the 'colonial reformers', the men in 1830 formed the National Colonization Society, and devoted themselves to pushing officialdom into implementing the theory.

The next two decades were the high point of his life. True, it was marred by the death of his consumptive daughter in Lisbon on 12 February 1835 and by his ill health after a stroke in 1846. The establishment also never forgave Wakefield for his past misdeeds; for example, after he joined Lord Durham's famous mission to Canada, Prime Minister Lord Melbourne intervened to prevent his holding a formal position.

Thus in England, Wakefield was unable to use colonial reform as a vehicle to enter Parliament and take office in almost all the promotional associations he helped to establish (the one exception being his directorship of the New Zealand Company, 1840--49). Instead he was compelled to exercise power informally and anonymously. Even so this behind-the-scenes role must have granted him much satisfaction because his flair for manipulating and persuading important committees and individuals was extraordinary. Almost everyone who met Wakefield commented on the fascination of his personality.

Largely as a result of Wakefield's wire-pulling, the Colonial Office in 1831 abolished free land grants in New South Wales, and a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1836 to investigate the subject of colonial lands. From June to October 1838 Wakefield was in Canada as Durham's unofficial adviser.

In between forays into Canadian affairs, Wakefield was embroiled in plans to colonise New Zealand. He played a leading role in the setting up of the promotional body, the New Zealand Association, in early 1837 and in its battle with the Church Missionary Society and the Colonial Office, who thought colonisation was contrary to the well-being of the Maori. With the reconstitution of the association into the New Zealand Company in 1839, Wakefield, probably fearing that the Crown would annex New Zealand to protect Maori interests and shut the company out, organised the dispatch of the company's preliminary expedition to New Zealand on the Tory in May 1839.

After the Wairau affray of June 1843, during which his brother, Arthur Wakefield, was killed, Wakefield took a major part in the public defence of the company. With J. R. Godley he formed the promotional body for the Church of England settlement in Canterbury. Under his auspices the Society for the Reform of Colonial Government was established in December 1849 to agitate for colonial self-government. From 1850 he devoted his energies towards obtaining self-government for New Zealand.

Wakefield's decision to leave England in late 1852 for New Zealand was a tragic mistake. Although he said he came in search of rest and peace and to observe the results of his labours it is more likely he saw himself taking up the illustrious political career barred to him in England.

After landing in Lyttelton on 2 February 1853 he was coolly received in Christchurch. He journeyed to Wellington a month later where his offer to assist Governor George Grey to implement the New Zealand Constitution Act was disdainfully rejected, and where he helped initiate the abortive legal campaign against Grey's cheap land regulations. In August he was elected to the Hutt seat for the House of Representatives and in September to the Wellington Provincial Council, championing the rights of New Zealand Company labourers for free land grants as compensation for its failure to fulfil its promises to them.

Wakefield shone as the most able member during the inaugural session of the Wellington Provincial Council from October 1853 to February 1854, and, although without executive power, secured the formal enactment of the principle of ministerial responsibility. Prior to the long-awaited first meeting of the General Assembly in Auckland on 24 May 1854, he master-minded the lobbying of the newly elected members so that they would put up a united front in the demand for the immediate introduction of ministerial responsibility. It earned him much kudos; his fellow members decided that he should have the honour of moving the resolution in the House demanding responsible self-government during the address-in-reply debate.

The tragedy of Wakefield in New Zealand commenced from this point. Having led the House to its constitutional victory he made an about-face and wrecked the new constitutional and political arrangements. In the process he brought about his own political destruction. He may have been driven by a passion for revenge, a sense of wounded pride and grievance. An additional compulsion was his desire to become the colony's political supremo either in office or out. As he had little sway over the new ministers he probably planned to construct an opposition group from the disparate elements in the House until he had enough support to defeat the ministry. Aiding Wakefield's strategy were the inexperience and incohesion of his fellow parliamentarians. Wakefield was left with nothing but the odium of those who formerly respected him.

Wakefield next took the fatal step of acceding to a request to act as the governor's sole but unofficial adviser during the crisis and help form another ministry. When Wakefield announced to the House on 3 August what he had agreed, they were enraged by his apparent betrayal of the principles of ministerial responsibility. His isolation in Parliament was sealed on 5 August when, as a message was being read to the chamber by the governor, and Wakefield stepped over and altered it, an act which looked as if the governor was in Wakefield's pocket. Some thought was even given to Wakefield's impeachment.

Wakefield discovered that the governor did not intend to act on his advice so he resigned from this extraordinary position.

It is indicative of Wakefield's amazing strength of will that before the next session began he was able to talk the governor into proposing far-reaching measures (the working settler scheme and constitutional reform) and to set up another ministry drawn from Wakefield's few remaining supporters. All this came to nothing, however, for what quickly and inevitably emerged was that this ministry could not command a majority. It resigned on 4 September.

Even then Wakefield did not give up. During the second session of the 1854 Parliament he put forward a variety of measures which were intended to appeal to the common man in the forthcoming elections.
Fortune, however, brought an end to this hopeless struggle. While driving south to Wellington after the third of these meetings Wakefield caught a chill and went down with rheumatic fever. It compelled him to resign from the House and the Wellington Provincial Council in 1855. Although he slowly recovered, he lapsed into a deep depression. Until his death on 16 May 1862 he took no interest in public affairs, seldom ventured out of the room of his Wellington home, and saw virtually no one except a young niece, two beloved bulldogs, his faithful German manservant, William Schmidt, and (occasionally) his disappointing son, Jerningham. Unable to tolerate noise, he could not journey back to England. Day after day he sat brooding on his remoteness from his London friends and the squalor of frontier Wellington, his creation and now his prison.

Assessments of Wakefield have always revolved around questions about his integrity and intellectual profundity. Sympathisers say he had both, the extreme critics say he had neither, moderate critics while condemning him for lacking the former claim he had something of the latter. Although the moderate critics are closest to the truth, they fail to see that the qualities which allowed Wakefield to deviate from the norms of acceptable conduct also enabled him to be an intellectual innovator.

Now here is a bit more about Edward (Teddy) Jerningham Wakefield.

“He was marked throughout his life, and beyond it, by a damning reputation for flawed and wasted brilliance. Most commentators, including his own father, dismiss him as a wastrel and a failure, talented and intelligent, but reckless, weak-willed, contentious, promiscuous and generally unstable. The most acclaimed and most enduring achievements of his life are confined to a few years in his early 20s, when he lived and wrote Adventure .

The book was produced, with a companion volume of illustrations, both as propaganda to encourage new emigrants and as a public relations exercise. It sets out to celebrate and justify the New Zealand Company's grand enterprise. He has been accused of exaggeration and even of dishonesty, but within his own framework of loyalties, Jerningham Wakefield strives for complete accuracy and comprehensiveness. Basing his text on scrupulously kept journals, he records every interesting detail of his journeys, every impression and image of the new country. Significant events, such as the land purchase ceremonies or the Wairau affray, are reported with care. There are many digressions, including an analysis of the Treaty of Waitangi, and a chapter devoted to whaling. Innumerable facts are noted for their usefulness - botanical observations, geographical information, directions to the harbours, bays and channels, facts about winds, tides and sailing conditions.
Adventure is equally thorough in its account of the Maori. Jerningham Wakefield pays careful and respectful attention to the history, political background, tribal and family relationships, territory and status of the individuals and tribes he encountered.

He describes everything from buildings and fortifications to cooking in a hangi and scraping flax. He explains points of etiquette, and records the oratory of great chiefs; he uses Maori terms and phrases with a natural smoothness.

His concern for thoroughness and concreteness does not however produce a dull book. Despite the formality of much of his language, the writing can be vividly colourful, fluent and fast-paced, full of drama and enthusiasm. Whatever its other qualities and objectives, Adventure is very consciously just that, a book of adventure. There is an irresistible exhilaration, a genuine delight in the strange and the exciting. Travelling through a wild new country, living off the land, trading and negotiating with flamboyantly exotic characters, both Maori and Pakeha - Jerningham Wakefield, still only in his early 20s, relishes the thrills and colour of pioneering: 'The whaling was at this time going on with great spirit; and I sailed away from Kapiti one morning in the midst of an animated chase, the whale and the boats having crossed my bows more than once.'

He communicates his feelings of the momentous importance of particular events - the Company's formal land purchases, their meetings with the most powerful chiefs - and conveys too a good appreciation of the dangers involved. There is real seriousness in his detailing of tribal wars and skirmishes, tense moments when weapons had to be kept close, the increasing insecurity after the Wairau affray, and the lawlessness of many Pakeha settlers. The difficulties and risks of travel are a constant concern, ranging from the sudden emergency of shipwreck to the excitement of running the foaming rapids of the Wanganui River. There are moments too of sheer romance - an overnight voyage to Wanganui with a Maori party: 'When I woke once or twice during the night, the canoe was lifting over the long swell, the moon and stars shining bright and clear, and a heavy dew falling on the sleepers coiled in their blankets, and the only sound to disturb the calm of the scene was the distant roar of the surf.'

Jerningham Wakefield is attuned to the romantic conventions and sensibilities of his time. The new country provides him with abundant opportunity for lyrical landscape description - the grandeur of mountains and forest, the clear beauty of coasts and harbours, the 'melodious chimes of the bell-bird' in the bush. Equally romantic is the glowing Utopian sentiment he applies to the yeoman farmers of Taranaki and the Hutt, or his tendency to view the Maori in the idealised colours of Rousseau's noble savage, or even in neo-classical terms: 'An old sage named Matangi now rose…. His silver-white hair and long beard, and benignant countenance, gave him the air of a Priam or a Nestor'

There are strongly romantic qualities too in the rebelliousness and recklessness which eroded away Jerningham Wakefield's career. A pattern of controversy and scandal, of defiantly running counter to the orthodox respectabilities, shadows his life from early childhood, when his father was imprisoned in Newgate. After an extravagantly Bohemian lifestyle in the later 1840s as a celebrated young writer in London, his later career dissipated into good intentions, persistent failures and frustration.

Jerningham Wakefield married, on 3 October 1863 in Christchurch, a woman nearly 20 years younger than he, Ellen Roe, the daughter of a builder; they had two daughters. He published one more book, in 1868, an edition of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's letters titled The founders of Canterbury , and wrote several political pamphlets. His later life was clouded by alcoholism and disgrace, and he died in obscurity in the Ashburton Old Men's Home on 3 March 1879.

Reverend Charles Torlesse wrote a book about Stoke-by-Nayland which was published in 1879, and had 90 copies printed.

My special thanks to Rosemary (Bluecity) for her information which helped me in my research, and to my other faithful readers, Fledermaus, Lizzy, Phil and Teddy.
 

References:

The Shrigley Abduction, by Abby Ashby and Audrey Jones, Sutton Publishing, 2003.
The Manchester Guardian website with articles about Edward Gibbon and William Wakefield during the time of the trial, and also articles about Edward Gibbon’s time in Canada.
New Zealand Adventure by Edward Jermingham Wakefield, published by John Murray, London 1845. Google Books.
A Sort of Conscience, by Philip Temple, Auckland University Press, 2002.
A View to the Act of Colonisation by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Google books.

And I used extensively the following websites:

Historical Directories:
Pigot & Co. Directory of Cheshire, 1828-29 (the entry about Disley in this directory inspired me to write this book)
Bsalshaws Guide and Directory to Altrincham, 1855
Post Office Directory of Cambridge, Norfolk and Suffolk, 1860, Part 3, Suffolk
Disley - On line
Disley, Lyme Handley, Taxal and Whaled and Cheshire - Stray Marriages and St Mary’s Church Registers
Wikipedia
Christchurch New Zealand Library
Auckland, New Zealand Library
Shrigley Hall Hotel
Christchurch online
New Zealand electrical Text Centre
1843 Shipping intelligence for the New Zealand Colonies and Port Nicholson Adviser
AIM - archives in London and M24 rea
A Vision of Britain - for Pott Shrigley and Stoke by Nayland
The British Colony of New Zealand, by the New Zealand Associtaon, Google Books, 1837
New Zealand in History