Date of Award


Document Type


Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)



First Advisor

Dr. A. Stanley Trickett


In the mid-nineteenth century, the British people experienced a revival of interest in expanding their empire. This renewed interest was, in part, a result of the publication of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's book, A Letter From Sydney, in 1829. This remarkable work vividly described the conditions then exisiting in New South Wales, Australia, A British penal colony founded on the coast of Austrailia in 1788. In his work, Wakefield declared that the lack of an adequate labor supply was responsible for most of the misery then prevalent in the Australian settlements. To overcome this deficiency, he propounded a new theory which he called "systematic colonization."


