John Helder Wedge

John Helder Wedge (1793 – 22 November 1872) was a surveyor, explorer and politician in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania, Australia).

Part of Wedge's work included investigating grants surveyed earlier by George Evans and Thomas Scott who were both accused of receiving bribes for measuring more than the authorised area to settlers.

[1] A large expedition was organised by the surveyor-general, George Frankland, in February 1835 to explore the country lying between the Derwent, Gordon and Huon Rivers.

Wedge also reported to Lieutenant-Governor Arthur on the wild white man, William Buckley, whose pardon he recommended, and on outrages against the Aboriginals, for whose hopeless condition he had much compassion.

In 1843, Wedge married Maria Medland Wills, who had been governess to Bishop Francis Russell Nixon's children, but within a year she died in childbirth.

Wedge held office in the short-lived ministry of Thomas Gregson in 1857, as member for North Esk, and initiated the inquiry into the convict department under its comptroller, Stephen Hampton.

Wedge was an active Anglican; one of his last acts before withdrawing from parliament in 1868 was to support the commutation bill that granted £100,000 to religious denominations in place of annual state aid.