Edward Gibbon
Portrait, oil on canvas, of Edward Gibbon by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Born	May 8, 1737 Putney, Surrey, England
Died	January 16, 1794(1794-01-16) (aged 56) London

Edward Gibbon (27 April 1737^{[notes 1]} – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organized religion.^[1]

Early life: 1737–1752[link]

Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. He had six siblings: five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, also named Edward, had lost all of his assets as a result of the South Sea Bubble stock market collapse in 1720, but eventually regained much of his wealth, so that Gibbon's father was able to inherit a substantial estate.^[2]

As a youth, his health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse." At age nine, Gibbon was sent to Dr. Woddeson's school at Kingston upon Thames (now Kingston Grammar School), shortly after which his mother died. He then took up residence in the Westminster School boarding house, owned by his adored "Aunt Kitty," Catherine Porten. Soon after she died in 1786, he remembered her as rescuing him from his mother's disdain, and imparting "the first rudiments of knowledge, the first exercise of reason, and a taste for books which is still the pleasure and glory of my life."^[3] By 1751, Gibbon's reading was already extensive and certainly pointed toward his future pursuits: Laurence Echard's Roman History (1713), William Howel(l)'s An Institution of General History (1680–85), and several of the 65 volumes of the acclaimed Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time (1747–1768).^[4]

Oxford, Lausanne, and a religious journey: 1752–1758[link]

Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health, at the age of 15 Gibbon was sent by his father to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to the college atmosphere and later rued his 14 months there as the "most idle and unprofitable" of his life. Because he himself says so in his autobiography, it used to be thought that his penchant for "theological controversy" (his aunt's influence) fully bloomed when he came under the spell of the deist or rationalist theologian Conyers Middleton (1683–1750), the author of Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers (1749). In that tract, Middleton denied the validity of such powers; Gibbon promptly objected, or so the argument used to run. The product of that disagreement, with some assistance from the work of Catholic Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), and that of the Elizabethan Jesuit Robert Parsons (1546–1610), yielded the most memorable event of his time at Oxford: his conversion to Roman Catholicism on June 8, 1753. He was further "corrupted" by the 'free thinking' deism of the playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet;^[5] and finally Gibbon's father, already "in despair," had had enough. David Womersley has shown, however, that Gibbon's claim to having been converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely, and was introduced only into the final draft of the "Memoirs" in 1792-93.^[6] Bowersock suggests that Gibbon fabricated the Middleton story retrospectively in his anxiety about the impact of the French Revolution and Edmund Burke's claim that it was provoked by the French philosophes, so influential on Gibbon.

Within weeks of his conversion, the youngster was removed from Oxford and sent to live under the care and tutelage of Daniel Pavillard, Reformed pastor of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was here that he made one of his life's two great friendships, that of Jacques Georges Deyverdun (the French language translator of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther); the other being John Baker Holroyd (later Lord Sheffield). Just a year and a half later, after his father threatened to disinherit him, on Christmas Day, 1754, he reconverted to Protestantism. "The various articles of the Romish creed," he wrote, "disappeared like a dream".^[7] He remained in Lausanne for five intellectually productive years, a period that greatly enriched Gibbon's already immense aptitude for scholarship and erudition: he read Latin literature; travelled throughout Switzerland studying its cantons' constitutions; and aggressively mined the works of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, and Blaise Pascal.

Thwarted romance[link]

Edward Gibbon, by Henry Walton (died 1813)

He also met the one romance in his life: the daughter of the pastor of Crassy, a young woman named Suzanne Curchod, who would later become the wife of Louis XVI's finance minister Jacques Necker, and the mother of Madame de Staël. The two developed a warm affinity; Gibbon proceeded to propose marriage,^[8] but ultimately wedlock was out of the question, blocked both by his father's staunch disapproval and Curchod's equally staunch reluctance to leave Switzerland. Gibbon returned to England in August 1758 to face his father. There could be no refusal of the elder's wishes. Gibbon put it this way: "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son."^[9] He proceeded to cut off all contact with Curchod, even as she vowed to wait for him. Their final emotional break apparently came at Ferney, France in the spring of 1764, though they did see each other at least one more time a year later.^[10]

First fame and the grand tour: 1758–1765[link]

Portchester Castle came under Gibbon's command for a brief period while he was an officer in the Hampshire militia.^[11]

Upon his return to England, Gibbon published his first book, Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature in 1761, which produced an initial taste of celebrity and distinguished him, in Paris at least, as a man of letters.^[12] From 1759 to 1770, Gibbon served on active duty and in reserve with the South Hampshire militia, his deactivation in December 1762 coinciding with the militia's dispersal at the end of the Seven Years' War.^[13] The following year he embarked on the Grand Tour (of continental Europe), which included a visit to Rome. In his autobiography Gibbon vividly records his rapture when he finally neared "the great object of [my] pilgrimage":

...at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation.^[14]

And it was here that Gibbon first conceived the idea of composing a history of the city, later extended to the entire empire, a moment known to history as the "Capitoline vision":^[15]

It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.^[16]

Womersley (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 12) notes the existence of "good reasons" to doubt the statement's accuracy. Elaborating, Pocock ("Classical History," ¶ #2) refers to it as a likely "creation of memory" or a "literary invention" seeing as how Gibbon, in his autobiography, claimed his journal dated the reminiscence to October 15, when in fact the journal gives no date.

[edit] The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: 1776–1788

Blue plaque to Gibbon on Bentinck Street, London

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.^[17] And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.^[18]

After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on February 17, 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000.^[19] Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."

Volumes II and III appeared on March 1, 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784;^[20] the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:

It was on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.^[21]

Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, publication having been delayed since March to coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th).^[22] Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Smith remarked that Gibbon's triumph had positioned him "at the very head of [Europe's] literary tribe."

Later years: 1789–1794[link]

The years following Gibbon's completion of The History were filled largely with sorrow and increasing physical discomfort. He had returned to London in late 1787 to oversee the publication process alongside Lord Sheffield. With that accomplished, in 1789 it was back to Lausanne only to learn of and be "deeply affected" by the death of Deyverdun, who had willed Gibbon his home, La Grotte. He resided there with little commotion, took in the local society, received a visit from Sheffield in 1791, and "shared the common abhorrence" of the French Revolution.

In a letter to Lord Sheffield on 5 February 1791, Gibbon praised Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France: "Burke's book is a most admirable medicine against the French disease, which has made too much progress even in this happy country. I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can even forgive his superstition...The French spread so many lyes about the sentiments of the English nation, that I wish the most considerably men of all parties and descriptions would join in some public act declaring themselves satisfied with, and resolved to support, our present constitution".^[23]

In 1793, word came of Lady Sheffield's death; Gibbon immediately quit Lausanne and set sail to comfort a grieving but composed Sheffield. His health began to fail critically in December, and at the turn of the new year, he was on his last legs.

Gibbon is believed to have suffered from an extreme case of scrotal swelling, probably a hydrocele testis, a condition which causes the scrotum to swell with fluid in a compartment overlying either testicle.^[24][25] In an age when close-fitting clothes were fashionable, his condition led to a chronic and disfiguring inflammation that left Gibbon a lonely figure.^[26] As his condition worsened, he underwent numerous procedures to alleviate the condition, but with no enduring success. In early January, the last of a series of three operations caused an unremitting peritonitis to set in and spread, from which he died. The "English giant of the Enlightenment"^[27] finally succumbed at 12:45 pm, January 16, 1794 at age 56. He was buried in the Sheffield family graveyard at the parish church in Fletching, Sussex.^[28]

Legacy[link]

Gibbon's work has been criticised for its scathing view of Christianity as laid down in chapters XV and XVI. Those chapters were strongly criticised and resulted in the banning of the book in several countries. Gibbon's alleged crime was disrespecting, and none too lightly, the character of sacred Christian doctrine, by "treat[ing] the Christian church as a phenomenon of general history, not a special case admitting supernatural explanations and disallowing criticism of its adherents". More specifically, the chapters excoriated the church for "supplanting in an unnecessarily destructive way the great culture that preceded it" and for "the outrage of [practicing] religious intolerance and warfare".^[29] Gibbon, though assumed to be entirely anti-religion, was actually supportive to some extent, insofar as it did not obscure his true endeavour – a history that was not influenced and swayed by official church doctrine. Although the most famous two chapters are heavily ironical and cutting about religion, it is not utterly condemned, and its truth and rightness are upheld however thinly.

Gibbon, in letters to Holroyd and others, expected some type of church-inspired backlash, but the utter harshness of the ensuing torrents far exceeded anything he or his friends could possibly have anticipated. Contemporary detractors such as Joseph Priestley and Richard Watson stoked the nascent fire, but the most severe of these attacks was an "acrimonious" piece by the young cleric, Henry Edwards Davis.^[30] Gibbon subsequently published his Vindication in 1779, in which he categorically denied Davis' "criminal accusations", branding him a purveyor of "servile plagiarism."^[31] Davis followed Gibbon's Vindication with yet another reply (1779).

Gibbon's apparent antagonism to Christian doctrine spilled over into the Jewish faith, leading to charges of anti-Semitism.^{[citation needed]} For example, he wrote:

From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but also of humankind.^[32]

Gibbon is considered to be a son of the Enlightenment and this is reflected in his famous verdict on the history of the Middle Ages: "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion."^[33] However, politically, he aligned himself with the conservative Edmund Burke's rejection of the democratic movements of the time as well as with Burke's dismissal of the "rights of man."^[34]

Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, his piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston Churchill memorably noted, "I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. ...I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all."^[35] Churchill modelled much of his own literary style on Gibbon's. Like Gibbon, he dedicated himself to producing a "vivid historical narrative, ranging widely over period and place and enriched by analysis and reflection."^[36]

Unusually for the 18th century, Gibbon was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sources were accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions). "I have always endeavoured," he says, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend."^[37] In this insistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon is considered by many to be one of the first modern historians:

In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the 'History' is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ...Whatever its shortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period.^[38]

The subject of Gibbon's writing as well as his ideas and style have influenced other writers. Besides his influence on Churchill, Gibbon was also a model for Isaac Asimov in his writing of The Foundation Trilogy, which he said involved "a little bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward Gibbon".

Evelyn Waugh admired Gibbon's style but not his secular viewpoint. In Waugh's 1950 novel Helena, the early Christian author Lactantius worried about the possibility of " '...a false historian, with the mind of Cicero or Tacitus and the soul of an animal,' and he nodded towards the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chattered for fruit."^[39]

J. C. Stobart, author of The Grandeur that was Rome (1911), wrote of Gibbon that "The mere notion of empire continuing to decline and fall for five centuries is ridiculous...this is one of the cases which prove that History is made not so much by heroes or natural forces as by historians."

Footnotes[link]

Monographs by Gibbon[link]

Other writings by Gibbon[link]

See also[link]

• The Work of J.G.A. Pocock: Edward Gibbon section.
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Further reading.
• The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon.
• A Gibbon chronology.

Notes[link]

Most of this article, including quotations unless otherwise noted, has been adapted from Stephen's entry on Edward Gibbon in the Dictionary of National Biography.

References[link]

Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (October 2010)

• Beer, G. R. de. "The Malady of Edward Gibbon, F.R.S." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 7:1 (December 1949), 71–80.
• Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian 1772–1794. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. HB: ISBN 0-8018-3720-0. Biography.
• Dickinson, H.T . "The Politics of Edward Gibbon". Literature and History 8:4 (1978), 175–196.
• Goodall, John (2008), Portchester Castle, London: English Heritage, ISBN 978-1-84802-007-8 
• Low, D. M., Edward Gibbon. 1737–1794 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937).
• Murray, John (ed.), The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon. Second Edition (London: John Murray, 1897).
• Norton, J. E. A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon. New York: Burt Franklin Co., 1940, repr. 1970.
• Norton, J .E. The Letters of Edward Gibbon. 3 vols. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1956.
• Pocock, J. G. A. The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. HB: ISBN 0-521-63345-1.
• Pocock, J. G. A. "Classical and Civil History: The Transformation of Humanism". Cromohs 1 (1996). Online at the Università degli Studi di Firenze. Accessed 20 November 2009.
• Pocock, J. G. A. "The Ironist". Review of David Womersley's The Watchmen of the Holy City. London Review of Books 24:22 (November 14, 2002). Online at the London Review of Books (subscribers only). Accessed 20 November 2009.
• Gibbon, Edward. Memoirs of My Life and Writings. Online at Gutenberg. Accessed 20 November 2009.
• Stephen, Sir Leslie, "Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)". In the Dictionary of National Biography, eds. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee. Oxford: 1921, repr. 1963. Vol. 7, 1129–1135.
• Womersley, David, ed. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3 vols. (London and New York: Penguin, 1994).
• Womersley, David. "Introduction," in Womersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 1, xi–cvi.
• Womersley, David. "Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)". In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 22, 8–18.

Further reading[link]

Before 1985[link]

• Beer, Gavin de. Gibbon and His World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968. HB: ISBN 0-670-28981-7.
• Bowersock, G. W., et al. eds. Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
• Craddock, Patricia B. Young Edward Gibbon: Gentleman of Letters. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. HB: ISBN 0-8018-2714-0. Biography.
• Jordan, David. Gibbon and his Roman Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971.
• Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. The Library of Edward Gibbon. 2nd ed. Godalming, England: St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1940, repr. 1980.
• Lewis, Bernard. "Gibbon on Muhammad". Daedalus 105:3 (Summer 1976), 89–101.
• Low, D. M. Edward Gibbon 1737–1794. London: Chatto and Windus, 1937. Biography.
• Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Gibbon's Contributions to Historical Method". Historia 2 (1954), 450–463. Reprinted in Momigliano, Studies in Historiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1966; Garland Pubs., 1985), 40–55. PB: ISBN 0-8240-6372-4.
• Porter, Roger J. "Gibbon's Autobiography: Filling Up the Silent Vacancy". Eighteenth-Century Studies 8:1 (Autumn 1974), 1–26.
• Stephen, Leslie, "Gibbon's Autobiography" in Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 1 (1898)
• Swain, J. W. Edward Gibbon the Historian. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966.
• Turnbull, Paul. "The Supposed Infidelity of Edward Gibbon", Historical Journal 5 (1982), 23–41.
• White, Jr. Lynn, ed. The Transformation of the Roman World: Gibbon's Problem after Two Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. HB: ISBN 0-520-01334-4.

Since 1985[link]

• Bowersock, G. W. Gibbon's Historical Imagination. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
• Burrow, J. W. Gibbon (Past Masters). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. HB: ISBN 0-19-287553-1. PB: ISBN 0-19-287552-3.
• Carnochan, W. Bliss. Gibbon's Solitude: The Inward World of the Historian. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. HB: ISBN 0-8047-1363-4.
• Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon: a Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987. PB: ISBN 0-8161-8217-5. A comprehensive listing of secondary literature through 1985. See also her supplement covering the period through 1997.
• Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon Observed". Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991), 132–156.
• Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's First Thoughts: Rome, Christianity and the Essai sur l'Étude de la Litterature 1758–61". Journal of Roman Studies 85 (1995), 148–164.
• Ghosh, Peter R. "The Conception of Gibbon's History", in McKitterick and Quinault, eds. Edward Gibbon and Empire, 271–316.
• Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's Timeless Verity: Nature and Neo-Classicism in the Late Enlightenment," in Womersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays.
• Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon, Edward 1737–1794 British historian of Rome and universal historian," in Kelly Boyd, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999), 461–463.
• Levine, Joseph M., "Edward Gibbon and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns," in Levine, Humanism and History: origins of modern English historiography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
• Levine, Joseph M. "Truth and Method in Gibbon's Historiography," in Levine, The Autonomy of History: truth and method from Erasmus to Gibbon (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999).
• McKitterick, R., and R. Quinault, eds. Edward Gibbon and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Norman, Brian. "The Influence of Switzerland on the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon," in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century [SVEC] v.2002:03. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002.
• Pocock, J. G. A. Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols.: vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-63345-1]; vol. 2, Narratives of Civil Government, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-64002-4]; vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall, 2003 [pb: ISBN 0-521-82445-1]; vol. 4, Barbarians, Savages and Empires, 2005 [pb: ISBN 0-521-72101-1]. all Cambridge Univ. Press.
• Porter, Roy. Gibbon: Making History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, HB: ISBN 0-312-02728-1.
• Turnbull, Paul. "'Une marionnette infidele': the Fashioning of Edward Gibbon's Reputation as the English Voltaire," in Womersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays.
• Womersley, David P. The Transformation of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. HB: ISBN 0-521-35036-0.
• Womersley, David P., John Burrow, and J.G.A. Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1997. HB: ISBN 0-7294-0552-4.
• Womersley, David P. Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City’: The Historian and His Reputation, 1776–1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. PB: ISBN 0-19-818733-5.

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Edward Gibbon

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edward Gibbon

• Complete History of the Decline and Fall including Gibbon's Vindication, courtesy: Christian Classics Ethereal Library of Calvin College, Grands Rapids, Michigan, USA.
• Extensive Biography in 1911 Encyclopedia
• Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 1: The Man and his Book
• Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 2: A closer look at The Decline and Fall (Dead link)
• EdwardGibbonStudies.com: Web Center for Edward Gibbon Studies
• Works by Edward Gibbon at Project Gutenberg
• Gibbon, by James Cotter Morison at Project Gutenberg
• The Life and Death of Edward Gibbon @ Ward's Book of Days
• A Brief Biography of Edward Gibbon
• DeclineandFallResources.com – Original Maps and Footnote Translations
• Biographer Patricia Craddock's comprehensive bibliography through May 1999.
• Craddock's supplement to her Reference Guide.

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2010)

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 1796 – 16 May 1862) was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand.

Wakefield, who in 1816 married Eliza Pattle (1799–1820), was the eldest son of Edward Wakefield (1774–1854) and Susanna Crash (1767–1816).^[1] He is mentioned and criticised in Chapter 33 of Karl Marx's Das Kapital (Volume 1)

Early life[link]

Born in London, Great Britain, in 1796, Wakefield was educated in London and Edinburgh. He was the brother of William Hayward Wakefield, and of Arthur Wakefield and Felix Wakefield.^[1]

He served as a King's Messenger, carrying diplomatic mail all about Europe during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars, both before and after the decisive Battle of Waterloo. In the year 1816 he ran off with a Miss Eliza Pattle and they were subsequently married in Edinburgh. It appears to have been a "love match", but no doubt the fact that she was a wealthy heiress did "sweeten the pot", with Edward receiving a marriage settlement of 70,000 pounds, with the prospect of more when Eliza turned twenty-nine.

The now married couple, accompanied by the bride's mother and various servants, moved to Genoa where Mr. Wakefield was again employed in a diplomatic capacity. Here his first child, Nina, was born in 1817. The household returned to London in 1820 and a second child, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, was born. Four days later Eliza died and the two children were thereafter brought up by their aunt, Mr. Wakefield's older sister, Catherine.

Although wealthy by contemporary standards, Mr. Wakefield was not satisfied. He wished to acquire an estate and enter Parliament, for this Mr. Wakefield needed more capital. He almost managed to wed yet another wealthy heiress in 1826 when he abducted 15-year-old Ellen Turner after luring her from school with a false message about her mother. Wakefield was brought to trial for the case known as the Shrigley abduction in 1827 and, along with his brother William, sentenced to three years in Newgate prison.^[2] He then attempted to overturn his father-in-law's will and get his hands on the remainder of his dead wife's money. This did not work either and, in fact, the entire affair did a lot to tarnish his reputation - there were strong suspicions that in order to strengthen his case he had resorted first, to forgery and then, perjury, although no charges were ever then brought to a trial.

South Australia[link]

In 1831 Wakefield became involved in various schemes to promote the colonisation of South Australia. He believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by overcrowding and overpopulation and he saw emigration to the colonies as a useful safety valve. He set out to design a good colonisation scheme, one with a workable combination of labourers, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants.

The South Australia colony took several attempts to get going. Although initially Wakefield was a driving force he found that as it came closer to reality he was allowed less and less influence. Eventually he was frozen out almost completely whereupon he took offence and severed his connections with the scheme. It was during this period that his daughter, Nina, died. He had taken her to Lisbon hoping the warmer climate would improve her health. This also meant that he was away from the scene of negotiations for several months.

However he didn't lose interest in colonisation as a tool for social engineering and a new project was soon under way, the New Zealand Association.

In 1837 the Colonial Office gave the New Zealand Association a charter to promote settlement in New Zealand. However, they attached conditions that were unacceptable to the members of the Association. After considerable discussion interest in the project waned.

Wakefield was undoubtedly one of the most influential voices in the Association and he had discovered another interest, Canada.

Canada[link]

The 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada had been suppressed but the colony was in turmoil. The government of Lord Melbourne wanted to send John George Lambton, Lord Durham to sort it out. He and Wakefield had been working together closely on the New Zealand scheme, he was a convert to Wakefield's colonial theories. Durham was only prepared to accept the task if Wakefield would accompany him as Commissioner of Crown Lands. However they both knew that Wakefield would be completely unacceptable to the British government and so Durham was going to announce the appointment only after he had reached Canada. Wakefield and his son, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, sailed secretly for Canada in 1838 but before they arrived word had leaked out and the appointment was forbidden by London. Despite this Durham retained him as an unofficial representative, advisor and negotiator, giving him effectively the same powers he would have had he been appointed.

Between them they successfully defused the situation and brought about the union of Upper and Lower Canada. Since Durham was ill for much of his time in Canada a great deal of the credit for the success of his mission belongs to his advisers, Wakefield and Charles Buller. Clearly Wakefield had become a capable negotiator. Shortly afterwards political manoeuvring in London made Durham's position untenable, he resigned and they all returned to Britain.

Here Durham went into seclusion while he wrote and then presented to Parliament a report on his administration. Although their names are not mentioned it seems likely that report was written in cooperation by the three men, Durham, Buller and Wakefield. Eventually this report and its conclusions became a blue print for development of British Colonial policy.

The New Zealand Company[link]

The defunct New Zealand Association reformed itself as the New Zealand Company in June 1838. By the end of the year they had purchased a ship, the Tory. Early in 1839 they discovered that although they now complied with the conditions the Government had laid down for the old New Zealand Association the government was not prepared to honour its promises. Furthermore it was actively considering making New Zealand a British Colony in which case land sales would become a Government monopoly.

At a meeting in March 1839, Wakefield was invited to become the director of the New Zealand Company. His philosophy was the same as when he planned his elopements: "Possess yourself of the Soil and you are Secure."

It was decided that the Tory would sail for New Zealand as soon as possible. His brother William was appointed leader of the expedition with his son Edward Jerningham as his nominal secretary. They had some difficulty finding a suitable captain for the Tory but then found Edward Main Chaffers who had been sailing master on HMS Beagle during Fitzroy's circumnavigation. Dr. Ernst Dieffenbach was appointed as scientific officer and Charles Heaphy as a draughtsman. The Tory left London on 5 May and called at Plymouth to complete the fitting out. Fearing a last minute attempt by the Government to prevent her sailing Wakefield hastened down to Plymouth and advised their immediate departure. The Tory finally quit English shores on 12 May 1839 and reached New Zealand ninety six days later.

Wakefield did not sail with the colonists, and many years were to pass before he saw New Zealand. Probably he also recognised that he did not have the patience, the skills or the talents needed on a frontier. His talents lay in visualising dramatic plans and grandiose schemes and then persuading other people to get involved. He was not even a good organiser as he tended to ignore the details. He was a salesman, a propagandist and a politician.

By the end of 1839 he had dispatched eight more ships to New Zealand, before he even knew of the success of the Tory expedition led by his brother William. He then recruited his brother, Arthur to lead another expedition, this time to settle in the Nelson area at the top of the South Island. The 16 year old son of his sister Catherine, Charles Torlesse, and of the rector of Stoke-by-Nayland (who subsequently also went to New Zealand for a time), sailed with Arthur as a trainee surveyor. By now William's daughter, Emily and his ward, Liocadia, were already in New Zealand. Two more of his brothers would also eventually go to New Zealand along with numerous nieces and nephews.

By the turn of the century (2000) no direct descendants of the Wakefield family are left in New Zealand with the exception of William Wakefield Lawrence Clague resident in Kapiti, and some Torlesses. A great great nephew of William and Edward Gibbon Wakefield, William Clague is the great great grandson of John Howard Wakefield, one of the original brothers. John Howard Wakefield spent most of his life in India ending his days back in England unlike his two more well known siblings.^[3]

Canada again[link]

While active with the New Zealand Company, Wakefield had maintained his interest in Canadian affairs. He was involved with the North American Colonial Association of Ireland, NACAI. At his instigation, the NACAI were trying to purchase a large estate just outside Montreal where they wanted to establish another Colonial settlement. Wakefield pushed the scheme with his usual energy; apparently, the government did not object in principle but they strenuously objected to Wakefield having any part of it.

But trusted or not by the politicians, Wakefield was involved in the scheme. The NACAI sent him back to Canada as their representative; he arrived in Montreal in January 1842 and stayed in Canada for about a year. At this stage, Canada was still coming to terms with the union of Upper and Lower Canada. There were serious differences between the French and English Canadians with the English Canadians holding the political clout. Wakefield skilfully manipulated these differences; it was fairly easy for him to get the support of the French Canadians. By the end of that year he had got himself elected to the Canadian Parliament. It is perhaps typical of Wakefield that, having been elected, he immediately returned to Britain and never took up his seat.

He went back to Canada in 1843 and spent some months there. However when he heard of his brother Arthur's death at the Wairau Affray, he immediately quit Canada and never returned. This appears to be the end of his involvement with Canadian affairs except that he was paid about twenty thousand pounds by the NACAI for his work in Canada.

Final years in Britain[link]

Wakefield returned to England early in 1844 to find the New Zealand Company under serious attack from the Colonial Office. As usual he threw himself into the campaign to save his project. Then in August, 1844, he had a stroke followed in the months ahead by several other minor strokes and he had to retire from the struggle, there is also a possibility that his mental health was not too sound in the succeeding months. Fortunately his son, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, returned from New Zealand about this time and was on hand to care for him. In August, 1845 he went to France to recuperate and to give himself a complete break from New Zealand affairs. However it did not serve his purpose and he returned to London two months later in a semi-invalid state.

By January 1846 Wakefield was back to his scheming. By now Gladstone was Colonial Secretary. Wakefield approached him early in the New Year with a fairly radical plan, that both the Government and the New Zealand Company should withdraw from New Zealand affairs and the colony should become self governing. While it might have been a good idea Wakefield wanted it accepted immediately and became at first heated and then distressed when some months later, it was still being considered.

Then during August 1846 he had another, potentially fatal stroke. His friend, Charles Buller took up the negotiations. In May 1847 the British Government agreed to take over the debts of the New Zealand Company and to buy out their interests in the Colony. The directors accepted the offer with alacrity and Wakefield found he was powerless and unable to influence the decision, which did not please him.

Perhaps fortunately he almost immediately had a distraction. Without warning his youngest brother Felix, who had been in Tasmania since the early 1830s, reappeared in England accompanied by eight of his children, having abandoned his wife and youngest child in Australia. Felix had no money and no prospects and was unable to provide for his family. Wakefield found him somewhere to live and farmed out the children among various relatives but it was another year before his health was strong enough to take over the role of surrogate father, Felix being apparently unable to do anything for his family.

Meanwhile Wakefield was getting involved in a new scheme. He was working with John Robert Godley to promote a new settlement in New Zealand, this one to be sponsored by the Church of England. This plan matured to become the Canterbury Settlement. The first ship sailed from England in December, 1849 with Robert Godley in command of the expedition. With them also sailed Edward Jerningham Wakefield, his health and finances ruined by his dissipated life style in London. Then the first immigrant ships sailed from Plymouth in September 1850, bound for Canterbury and others followed.

In the same year, 1850, Wakefield co-founded the Colonial Reform Society with Charles Adderley, a landowner and member of parliament for Staffordshire.

Brother Felix was causing problems back in Britain and causing Wakefield a great deal of grief. Perhaps fortunately Felix decided that settlement in New Zealand was the solution to all his problems, not realising that he created most of them himself. Reluctantly Wakefield sponsored his passage to Canterbury where he was allocated 100 acres (0.40 km²) of land (40 hectares) near Sumner. He and six of his children arrived in Lyttelton in November 1851. A short time later one of other settlers described him as "the worst man we have in Canterbury".

During 1851 and 1852 Wakefield continued to work for the Canterbury Association and also to work towards making New Zealand a self-governing colony. The New Zealand Constitution Act was passed on 30 June 1852. There was general satisfaction among New Zealanders about this although they were less happy to discover that the new government was to be saddled with the remaining debts of the defunct New Zealand Company.

Wakefield now decided that he had achieved everything he could in England. It was time to see the colony he felt he had created. He sailed from Plymouth in September 1852 knowing he would never return. His sister Catherine and her son Charley came to see him off. Then at the last minute his father appeared. Edward Wakefield was now 78 years old; he and Wakefield had not spoken since the Ellen Turner abduction twenty six years before. However they were reconciled, and the elder Edward died two years later.

Wakefield in New Zealand[link]

The ship arrived at Port Lyttelton in 2 February 1853. Wakefield had travelled with Henry Sewell who had been deputy chairman and full time manager of the Canterbury Association. It seems likely that he expected to be welcomed as a founding father of the colony; to be feted and immediately asked to assume the leadership of colony. However colonisation had inevitably changed the perspectives of the people of Canterbury. Many of them felt they had been let down and cheated by the Association and the two arrivals were firmly linked in their minds with the broken promises and disappointments of the Association.

James Edward FitzGerald, who was one of the leaders of Canterbury and who was elected as Superintendent of the Canterbury Province a few months later (in July 1853),^[4] declined to meet with Wakefield for some days and certainly was not willing to relinquish control to someone he probably saw as a tainted politician from London.

Within a very short time Wakefield was completely disenchanted with Canterbury. He claimed the citizens were far too parochial in their outlook; they were far more concerned with domestic issues rather than national politics. Clearly they were not worthy of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and after only one month he left Canterbury and sailed for Wellington.

There was enough political ferment in Wellington to satisfy even Wakefield. Governor George Grey had just proclaimed self government for New Zealand but it was a watered down version of it, significantly less "self-government" than was described in the New Zealand Constitution Act of the year before. In his own way George Grey was every bit as unscrupulous as Wakefield and he had very firm ideas on what was good for New Zealand. They were not necessarily bad ideas but they were different from Wakefield's. It seems likely that even before they met both men knew they would clash.

When they arrived in Wellington, Wakefield declined to go ashore until he knew he was going to be properly received by the Governor. Grey promptly left town. Sewell went ashore and met up with various dignitaries including Daniel Bell Wakefield, another of the brothers who had been in Wellington for some years practising law and was Attorney General of the Province. He also managed to get an address of welcome for Wakefield, written by Isaac Featherston and signed by many of the citizens.

Wakefield went on the attack almost as soon as he landed. He took issue with George Grey on his policy on land sales. Grey was in favour of selling land very cheaply to encourage the flow of settlers. Wakefield wanted to keep the price of land high so that the growth of the colony could be financed by land sales, it was a fundamental tenet of his colonial theory. He and Sewell applied for an injunction to prevent the Commissioner of Crown Lands selling any further lands under Governor Grey's regulations. Unfortunately the Crown Commissioner was Wakefield's second cousin, Francis Dillon Bell, early New Zealand really was a Wakefield family business.

Within a month of arriving in Wellington Wakefield was leading the attacks on George Grey, they began a campaign in London to have him recalled not knowing he had already applied to leave the colony. Meanwhile Grey was in control. He responded to the attacks on him by questioning Wakefield's integrity, always an easy target. Particularly he focussed on the generous fees that had been paid to Wakefield as a Director of the New Zealand Company at a time when it was reneging on its debts in New Zealand. This served to remind the people of Wellington just how badly they had been let down by the Company and how angry they felt about it. Wakefield managed to clear himself of the actual charges but a great deal of dirt was thrown around.

Member of Parliament[link]

Elections for the Provincial Councils and General Assembly, the national parliament were scheduled for August 1853. Wakefield stood for the Hutt electorate, and to the surprise of some and the disappointment of others he was elected to both the Provincial Council and the General Assembly.

The first sitting of the Provincial Assembly was in October 1853. Wakefield was not only the senior member but also clearly the most experienced politically, however the Assembly was controlled by the Constitutional Party led by Dr Isaac Featherston and they had been heavily involved in the recent criticism of his integrity. Working in opposition, Wakefield probably made certain that the Provincial Assembly became a working democracy rather than Constitutional Party oligarchy. His wide knowledge of parliamentary law and custom made certain that the body of the assembly could not be ignored by the ruling party.

Early in 1854 the town of Wellington held a "Founder's Festival". Three hundred people attended including sixty Maori and all the Wakefields. The principal toast of the evening was to "The original founders of the Colony and Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield." Whatever the vicissitudes of the last few months it confirmed Wakefield as one of the leading political figures of colony, possibly the only one with stature to take on Governor Grey.

Responsible Government conflict[link]

But Grey was gone and Colonel Robert Wynyard was acting as Governor. Wynyard opened the 1st New Zealand Parliament on the 27 May 1855. Wakefield and James Fitzgerald immediately began manoeuvring for positions of influence, with Wakefield moving a motion for Parliament to appoint its own responsible governments (Ministers of the Crown). Wakefield took a position supporting Wynyard, while FitzGerald took an opposite tack. The dispute over responsible government dragged on. As a compromise, Wynyard appointed James FitzGerald on 7 June to the Executive Council. Wakefield was not asked to form a part of the ministry.

By July FitzGerald was in serious conflict with Wynyard and resigned. Wakefield was sent for to form a government but he refused to do so. He said instead that he would advise Wynyard, so long as he acted on his advice alone. In effect he sought to turn Wynyard into his own puppet. However he did not have a majority of supporters in the house and the assembly was paralysed. It was prorogued by Wynyard on 17 August ^[5] but he had to recall it again by the end of the month when he needed money to run the country. The new Ministry was composed mainly of Wakefield's supporters and it was soon clear that he was the de facto head of the ministry. However they failed to survive an early vote of no confidence and New Zealand's second government collapsed. FitzGerald and his team returned to office. In the remaining two weeks of the Assembly's life they managed to pass some useful legislation before they were dismissed and new elections called.

Wakefield began electioneering in grand style. He was always able to move people with his speeches. He held two election meetings for his constituents in the Hutt Valley, which were well received. A third meeting was scheduled but it never happened. On the night of 5 December 1855, Wakefield fell ill with rheumatic fever and neuralgia. He retired to his house in Wellington. He had retired from the Hutt seat (on 15 September 1855), and he retired from all political activity and made no more public appearances. He lived for another seven years, but his political life, his real life, was over.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield died in Wellington on 16 May 1862.

Further reading[link]

• Edward Gibbon Wakefield biography from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
• "Edward Gibbon Wakefield". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2005. 
• Biography in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• The Wakefield Myth in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• A Sort of Conscience; The Wakefields by Phillip Temple, Auckland University Press, 2002
• Fatal Success: A History of the New Zealand Company by Patricia Burns (Heinemann Reed, 2002) ISBN 0-7900-0011-3
• Adventure in New Zealand by Edward Jerningham Wakefield, John Murray, 1845
• An Account of the Settlements of the New Zealand Company by The Hon HW Petre, Smith, Elder and Co, 1842.
• The Shrigley Abduction by Abby Ashby and Audrey Jones, 2003
• William Epps Cormack, Newfoundland Pioneer by Bernard D. Fardy, 1985 ISBN 0-920021-15-8 page 46 - 48 section describing The Wakefield Scheme.
• A View of the Art of Colonization by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1849.
• The Modern Theory of Colonisation last chapter in Karl Marx's Capital, Vol I focused on Wakefield's theory.
• Facts Relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, James Ridgway, 1831.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• "Biography" (in French). Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours. National Assembly of Quebec. http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/deputes/wakefield-edward-gibbon-5731/index.html. 

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Edward Gibbon Wakefield

• Temple, Philip (2002). A sort of conscience: the Wakefields. Auckland: Auckland University Press. ISBN 1-86940-276-6. http://books.google.com/?id=yXNpmHrpu9YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Sort+of+Conscience;+The+Wakefields#v=onepage&q&f=false.