William Wakefield

“ William Sharp was educated at Wakefield grammar school from 1813 to 1816, under the supervision of his uncle, Samuel Sharp, vicar of the parish, and he was afterwards sent to Westminster school, where he remained from 1817 to 1820. He was articled in 1821 to his uncle, William Sharp, a leading surgeon at Bradford, and he subsequently served a part of his apprenticeship to his uncle's cousin, the second William Hey of Leeds. ”

“ On another occasion the door of the House had to be locked to prevent the minority running away to force on a count-out, and one honourable member assaulted another with his fists. Australia laughed at the scene, which, it may here be said, has never been repeated in the New Zealand Legislature. The greatest man in the Parliament was the greatest failure of the session. Gibbon Wakefield left Auckland unpopular and distrusted. Soon afterwards his health broke down, and the rest of his life was passed in strict retirement in the Colony which he had founded and in which he died. ”

“ Wakefield afterwards acknowledged that his opponent was ‘a man of talents, very superior in his education and advantages, and deserves the warmest commendations for the pains which he must have taken with the cultivation of his understanding in very untoward circumstances.’ On being appointed vicar of Belton, Leicestershire, in 1796, being then broken in health, he left Warrington, though he retained St. ”

“ Mourning rings were left to many illustrious persons. The list included, besides Tooke and Cartwright, the names of sir Richard Colt Hoare, Robert Fergusson, William Hayley, William Bosville, William Frend, Thomas Wakefield and his brother, Gilbert Wakefield and bore striking witness to his friendship with those prominent in the cause of reform. His sisters Frances Mary S l John, Louisa Henrietta Warner and a third woman, Susanna Lambert, received £100 a year for life " not to be under the control of present or future husbands." ”

“ Nor is bitterness confined to wild language in or out of parliament. The terrible saying of Gibbon Wakefield, fifty years ago, that in Colonial politics "every one strikes at his opponent's heart," has still unhappily some truth in it. The man who would serve New Zealand in any more brilliant fashion than by silent voting or anonymous writing must tread a path set with the thorns of malice, and be satisfied to find a few friends loyal and a few foes chivalrous. ”

“ The boy's as downy as a boy need be.
In the year following the publication of "The Castle of Otranto," the "Vicar of Wakefield" was given to the world. It appears to have escaped travestie until 1885, when—thinking more, no doubt, of Mr. Wills's "Olivia" than of Goldsmith's chef d'œuvre—Messrs. Stephens and Yardley brought out at the Gaiety "The Vicar of Wideawakefield," in which Mr. Arthur Roberts and Miss Laura Linden sought, not unsuccessfully, to reproduce and heighten some of the artistic peculiarities of Mr. ”

“ There is nothing like the colonial grindstone for putting an edge on good steel. Grey, Selwyn, and Wakefield, as unlike morally as they were in manner, had this in common, that they were leaders of men, and that they had men to lead. That for thirty years the representatives of the English Government, from Busby to Browne, were, with the exception of Grey, commonplace persons or worse, must not blind us to the interest of the drama or to the capacity of many of the men whom these commonplace persons were sent to guide. ”

“ See under Wager, William Wager, William Waghorn, Martin Waghorn, Thomas Wagstaffe, John Wagstaffe, Joseph Wagstaffe, Thomas Wagstaffe, William Wainewright, Thomas Griffiths Wainfleet, William of. See Waynflete Wait, Daniel Guilford Waite, Thomas Waithman, Robert Wake, Hereward the. See Hereward Wake, Isaac Wake, Thomas Wake, William Wakefeld, Robert Wakefeld, Thomas Wakefield, Arthur. See under Wakefield, William Hayward Wakefield, Daniel Wakefield, Edward (1774-1854) Wakefield, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Edward Jerningham, See under Wakefield, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Felix. ”

“ Ferns and flags grow in the pool. The book-plate belonged to Joseph Priestley, and on that account we mention it after Wakefield's. Priestley was quite as bitter a Dissenter and as ardent a controversialist as Gilbert Wakefield, though it is more as a man of science that most people remember him. His name is so intimately associated with Birmingham politics at the time of the French Revolution, that the fact of his book-plate being engraved by a Birmingham man—it is signed 'Allen sct. ”

“ These Lots will be put up at a certain Sum per Annum, payable as Rent half-yearly. The Leases to run for Ten Years, the Purchaser having the privilege, at any time during the said terms of Ten Years, of obtaining the Fee of the Land, by paying up the Principal Sum, of which the Rents stands as Interest. ”

“ A right honest man shall fare well for 2d. a meal. There be plenti of se coal in the quarters about Wakefield.” The corn market, held on Fridays, is of remote origin. A cattle market is also held on alternate Wednesdays under charter of 1763. The town was enfranchised in 1832, and was incorporated in 1848 under the title of the mayor, aldermen and councillors of the borough of Wakefield. Before this date it was under the superintendence of a constable appointed by the steward of the lord of the manor.
See Victoria County History, Yorkshire; W. S. Banks, History of Wakefield (1871) ”

“ Wakefield?'
'In the city of —— where he was bred, under his father, to the profession of the law. From what I have seen of you, and from what I have heard of your talents and understanding, I should have expected you to have been the child of extraordinary parents; otherwise, I do not much wonder at your mother's conduct, superior as she was to Mr. Wakefield in years; for, of all the men I ever saw, he is the most deceitful, plausible, and dangerous. Neither man nor woman are safe with him; and his arts are such as to over-reach the most cautious. He has words at will ”

“ Wakefield's "happy pictures," I do not see anything left, but his eyebrows, for the luckless bard to hang by! He could not have hung by his hair, which "stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air;" nor yet by his hands, which "swept the deep sorrows of his lyre." Besides, there can scarcely be more opposite pictures than that of a man gathering samphire, or kids browsing, amongst beetling rocks; and the commanding and awe-inspiring position in which Gray ingeniously places his bard. ”

“ After the initial conception and the stirring up of the man’s sluggish temperament to put it in practice, the whole matter evolves itself in a natural train. We may suppose him, as the result of deep deliberation, buying a new wig of reddish hair and selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit of brown, from a Jew’s old-clothes bag. It is accomplished: Wakefield is another man. The new system being now established, a retrograde movement to the old would be almost as difficult as the step that placed him in his unparalleled position. ”

“ But though a "sprack" lad, and fond of pleasure and its haunts, Harry Wakefield was steady, and not the cautious Robin Oig M'Combich himself was more attentive to the main chance. His holidays were holidays indeed; but his days of work were dedicated to steady and persevering labour. In countenance and temper, Wakefield was the model of Old England's merry yeomen, whose cloth-yard shafts, in so many hundred battles, asserted her superiority over the nations, and whose good sabres, in our own time, are her cheapest and most assured defence. His mirth was readily excited ”

“ My wife approved her suspicions very much, observing, that she was very apt to be suspicious herself; but referred her to all the neighbours for a character: but this our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alledging that her cousin Thornhill’s recommendation would be sufficient, and upon this we rested our petition.
CHAPTER XII. Fortune seems resolved to humble the family of Wakefield. Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities. ”

“ Countless times he must have walked along the high banks of Popes Creek and the sandy shore of the Potomac River, and stalked game in the nearby forest. Wakefield is a monument to the growing boy who returned to the place of his birth when he was 11 years old 33 and learned his first lessons in surveying. The impressions which the peaceful farm made on his mind were lasting ones, and as he grew from youth into manhood and assumed greater responsibilities, the happy memories of days spent on his father’s plantation were never forgotten. ”

“ He remained in New Zealand until his death on the 19th of September 1848. Arthur Wakefield (1799–1843) , who was associated with his brother in these transactions about land, was killed during a fight with some natives at Wairau on the 17th of June 1843. The third brother was Felix Wakefield (1807–1875) , an engineer.
Wakefield was a man of large views and lofty aims, and in private life displayed the warmth of heart which commonly accompanies these qualities. ”

“ Toye,' one of which is entitled Of Wakefylde and a grene; meaning apparently the ballad here reprinted." Ritson.
In Wakefield there lives a jolly pindèr,
In Wakefield all on a green,
In Wakefield all on a green.
* * * * *
* * * * * [Pg 205]
"There is neither knight nor squire," said the pinder,
"Nor baron that is so bold,5
Nor baron that is so bold,
Dare make a trespàss to the town of Wakefield,
But his pledge goes to the pinfold," &c.
All this beheard three wighty yeomen,
'Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet and John;10
With that they espy'd the jolly pindèr,
As he sat under a thorn. ”

“ To the west of Pontefract, in a comparatively small space, and connected with a wonderful network of railways, lie Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and a dozen smaller centres of manufacture, while further south are Barnsley and Sheffield. It seems unfair that a district contributing so much to England’s wealth should be repaid by gloomy skies and depressing landscapes.
Wakefield has a fine Perpendicular church with a tall crocketed spire, which became a cathedral in 1888, when the new diocese was formed. ”

“ In all the great West Riding towns, Leeds or Sheffield or Bradford, there is a certain sense of power, of concentrated energy, which, though the sky is darkened and the air poisoned, strikes and impresses the mind. The shops are large, the streets are thronged, and the traveller will feel himself as much a mere unit as if he were in London or Manchester. But Wakefield is neither a commercial centre nor is it the county town. ”

“ Do you not remember billiards, hazard, and Bath?'
'Yes: but Wakefield would be incapable of the qualities of mind which you are now displaying. With you I feel myself in the company of a man of a perverted but a magnanimous spirit. With all your faults, I could hug you to my heart. But Wakefield! who made women and men alike his prey; to whose devilish arts the virtue and happiness of an amiable, I may say a charming, woman were sacrificed; and the life of one of the first of mankind was endangered ”

“ No man of his time possessed the adroit knack of bright writing in a more eminent degree. The pawky humour of his side-hits, the blending of light and shade in the process of the narrative, the beauty and melody that can be noted even in the sound of the sentences, combine to delight the judgment, the ear, and the fancy. Though the Vicar of Wakefield is a prose production, it produces all the effect of a poem on the affections of the heart. Of wit, properly speaking, it is as full as any volume of The Spectator; with humour it is flooded from beginning to end ”

“ The ancient Saxon parish of Dewsbury contained an area of 400 square miles. Travel we on and we come to Wakefield, in the meadows close to which was fought one of the most sanguinary battles in the Wars of the Roses. On Wakefield bridge, which spans the Calder, there is a lovely little chapelle, recently restored, thought to have been originally erected in the reign of Edward III., and said to have been rebuilt by Edward IV. to commemorate the death of his father, the Duke of York, and the young Earl of Rutland, the beautiful boy so ruthlessly slain there by Lord Clifford. ”

“ Who drives the plough and cart—”
when he was interrupted by a well-known voice, saying in a high and stern voice, marked by the sharp Highland accent, “Harry Waakfelt——if you be a man, stand up!” What is the matter?——what is it ?” the guests demanded of each other. “It is only a d———d Scotsman,” said Fleecebumpkin, who was by this time very drunk, “whom Harry Wakefield helped to his broth to-day, who is now come to have his cauld kail hett again.” “Harry Waakfelt,” repeated the same ominous summons, “stand up, if you be a man!” ”

“ Of the ancestors of William of Wykeham we know only that his father was called John, his mother Sibil, and that they were buried at Suthwyk. Every fact connected with the name of Wykeham deserves to be sought out and recorded. It is pleasing to find him, immediately upon his elevation, mindful of the place which contained his parents' remains, and so anxious to make provision for that which he believed to be conducive to the eternal peace of their souls. ”

“ After their release from Lancaster and Newgate respectively, both Wakefields went abroad. Mr. W. Wakefield served in a continental army, and rose to the rank of colonel, after which he went to New Zealand, and held an important post in that colony. Mr. E. G. Wakefield took part in the scheme for the colonization of North Australia, and for some years resided in that colony. Miss Turner subsequently married Mr. Legh of Lym Hall, Cheshire. ”

“ Wakefield is indeed an extraordinary man! Be his intentions honest or base, the strength and clearness of his mind and his knowledge of the human heart, when we recollect how these faculties have been employed, are truly astonishing. If this be a plan of artifice, it is little less than miraculous. Yet who can believe it to be any thing else?'
Miss Wilmot heaved a deep sigh, and attempted to speak: but she only stammered. ”