Edward Gibbon Wakefield never came to South Australia but his 'system of colonization' greatly influenced the South Australian Colonisation Commissioners and inspired the 'Act to empower His Majesty to erect South Australia into a British Province', which was drafted by his brother Daniel in 1834.

South Australia was born out of the ideas of a prisoner, Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862), serving three years in Newgate Gaol. He was convicted on a charge relating to the abduction and unlawful marriage at Gretna Green in 1826 of 15 year old heiress Ellen Turner.

As the son of Quakers, Wakefield was part of a long history of working for prison reform. His family was related to Elizabeth Fry, the famous prison reformer, who visited him in Newgate. Wakefield's experience of the English penal system caused him to consider the social problems of over population and the remedy of emigration to the colonies. In 1829, while in Newgate Wakefield wrote A letter from Sydney in which he outlined his 'System of Colonization'. Wakefield addressed the problem of balancing the supply of land with the demand for labour in new colonies. He proposed an 'Emigration Fund' raised through a rent tax payable by the landlord that would see labourers conveyed to the new colony free of cost. "The supply of Labourers be as nearly as possible proportioned to the demand for Labour at each settlement; so that Capitalists shall never suffer from an urgent want of Labourers, and that Labourers shall never want well-paid employment." [Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, Outline of a system of colonization, in Letter from Sydney, Appendix, London 1829, pp. viii - ix.]