Continuing on with my series of Wellington places named after people with extremely…complicated…histories and legacies, today I’m going to talk about William Wakefield, city founder, coloniser*, kidnapper and someone who was totally willing to be a rape accomplice, and his brother Edward, also hugely influential in founding Wellington, even more of a coloniser, even more of a kidnapper, and probably a rapist. The Wakefields in Wellington Unlike the Sir Truby King Gardens, which are quite hidden and which took my years to discover (and some Wellingtonians never do), it’s hard to miss to miss the Wellington places named after William Wakefield and Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Wakefield Street is a main thoroughfare running through the city. If you’re travelling from the airport to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the train station, parliament, or anything government based, you’re almost certainly going to go along Wakefield St. And if you go the other route to get through Wellington, you’ll pass through the Mt Victoria Tunnel**, and come out facing the Basin Reserve, and the Wakefield …