John Helder Wedge (1793 – 22 November 1872) was a surveyor, explorer and politician in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania, Australia).G. H. Stancombe, 'Wedge, John Helder (1793 - 1872)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition
Early life Born 1793, Wedge was the second son of Charles Wedge of Shudy Camps, of Cambridgeshire, England. John Wedge learned the basics of surveying from his father.
Van Diemens Land The brothers arrived in Van Diemen's Land aboard the Heroine on the morning of 15 April 1824.
Port Phillip District Wedge arrived the site of Melbourne on 2 September 1835, where he discovered members of a party organised by John Pascoe Fawkner. Wedge was against the forceful removal of Fawkner's party. Wedge named the Yarra River on 13 September 1835.
Leighland
In or soon after 1824, Wedge was granted a 1500-acre property which he called Leighland,Rebe Taylor, 'The Wedge Collection and the Conundrum of Humane Colonisation', Meanjin (Summer 2017), 34-55 (p. 36).The Diaries of John Helder Wedge, 1824-1835, ed. by Justice Crawford, W. F. Ellis and G. H. Stancombe. ([Devonport?]: Royal Society of Tasmania, 1962), pp. xiii, xix. later known as Leighlands, situated on the South Esk River, south of the town of Perth, in the Norfolk Plains district of Tasmania. He subsequently developed the property into a large sheep farm, building a house which was completed between 1830 and 1833.
Leighland passed on the death of John Helder Wedge to his nephew Thomas Wedge, and on his death in 1880 eventually went out of the Wedge family, and, following its acquisition by Alfred Youl, has since been in the Youl family.G. H. Stancombe, 'Youl, Alfred (1849–1921)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, 12 (MUP), 1990. The old homestead was burnt down in the 1950s.
References
J. Uhl, 'The Men from East Anglia: the Wedge Family an early pioneering family in Van Diemen's Land and Port Phillip', reprinted from the Victorian Historical Magazine Vol XXXVII No 1 (Melbourne 1966); Crawford et al. (editors) The Diaries of John Helder Wedge, Royal Society of Tasmania, (Hobart 1962); Correspondence File for Wedge in Tasmanian Archives)
John Helder Wedge, Field book 1835-1836. [manuscript]. MS 10768. State Library Victoria (Australia)
External links Images and transcript of John Helder Wedge's field book Map of Port Phillip at the State Library of Victoria Drawing of Leighland, from c. 1843