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These Times History Took a Turn for the Batty

Khalid Elhassan November 3, 2019 34 min

Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Big Issue North

26. The Kiwi Founding Father Who Kidnapped a 15-Year-Old

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796 – 1862) was a British politician who is deemed by many to have been the founder of New Zealand. Before that, however, he spent years in prison for abducting and marrying a 15-year-old heiress. His victim was Ellen Turner, the only daughter of a wealthy businessman.

Wakefield wanted her father’s money to bankroll his political career, but he realized that Ellen’s dad would never consent. So he sent a carriage to her boarding school, with a message that Ellen’s mother was dying, and wished to see her daughter immediately. She was then taken to a hotel, where Wakefield tricked her into marrying him.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.