John Wright

“ WRIGHT, JOHN (1568?–1605) , conspirator, was a grandson of John Wright of Ploughland Hall, Yorkshire, who had been seneschal to Henry VIII, and migrated thither from Kent in the thirty-third year of that king's reign. ”

“ WRIGHT, SAMUEL (1683–1746) , dissenting divine, eldest son of James Wright, was born at Retford, Nottinghamshire, on 30 Jan. 1682–3. His grandfather, John Wright (d. 1 Feb. 1684–5) , was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (admitted on 22 Nov. 1636, but did not graduate) ; was ordained by presbyterians (13 Aug. 1645) to the chapelry of Billinge, parish of Wigan, Lancashire; was nominated (2 Oct. 1646) a member of the fourth presbyterian classis of Lancashire ”

“ And as John Wright was a tenant of Catesby’s Mansion House, at Lapworth, in Warwickshire, about twenty miles distant from Hindlip, Christopher Wright must have not only heard of Father Oldcorne’s fame as a “counsellor of the doubtful” and a “friend in need,” but it is at least possible he may have been among those divers Catholics and Schismatics [53] in the country thereabouts who flocked to him for conference and to have his exhortations. ”

“ The Bench recorded a conviction, against which the defendant appealed, at the Norfolk Quarter Sessions, held at Norwich on March 13th. The Court quashed the conviction. Twenty other cases depended upon the result of this appeal.
—Died in London, aged 73, Mr. John Wright. He was a native of Norwich, and going early in life to the Metropolis, where he had the superintendence of Hookham’s Reading Rooms, in Old Bond Street, he became acquainted with many of the leading political and literary characters of the day, by whose support he entered into business as a publisher, in Piccadilly. ”

“ On leaving Seighford, the Rev. John Wright became Rector of Longford, Co. Derby, where he died in 1681. His death is thus recorded in the Parish Register, “1681. John Wright, rector of Longford, an orthodox and worthy son. Buried January 10th.”
[2]
This exemplary clergyman left a widow and eight children. The maiden name of the former I have not been able to discover, but her Christian name was Elizabeth, and those of his surviving children (he had lost one, Sarah, during her childhood) are written on the back of the inventory of his goods, thus—
Richard. John. Thomas. Jonathan. Matthewe. ”

“ The former was never sold, and the latter was bought by Wright's friend, John Leigh Philips. During all these years Wright went on painting portraits, with an occasional poetical composition, but most of these were not exhibited in London, and his public reputation was mainly based on his ‘candlelight’ pieces and pictures of fire and moonlight, until he obtained a wider popularity from the well-known engraving by J. Heath from his pathetic picture of ‘A Dead Soldier, his Wife and Child, vide Langhorne's “Poems,”’ which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789. ”

“ One of the daughters, Elizabeth, died unmarried in 1766, and Mary, the other, became the wife of Captain John Wilson, R.N., of Tamworth, and died in 1805. The son was named Richard, after his father, and followed the same profession. The third Richard in this branch was, like Joseph Wright the painter, the great grandson of the Rector of Longford, and must not be confounded with another Dr. Richard Wright, his second cousin, and brother of the [3] artist. For the sake of distinction he may be called Dr. Richard Wright of London, where he settled and became distinguished. ”

“ Wright had a son, whom he established at Rome as a teacher of languages. His brother, Jeremiah Wright, was also a painter, who assisted in the accessories of the judges' portraits in the Guildhall. A nephew, John Michael Wright, settled in Ireland and practised with some success as a portrait-painter there. ”

“ Before the flights, some of the neighbors had been puzzled by reports that the Wrights were working on a flying-machine. One man in business near the Wright shop had become acquainted with an inventor who thought he was about to perfect a perpetual motion machine; and this businessman promptly sent the inventor to the Wrights, assuming that he would find them kindred spirits. John G. Feight, living next door to the Wright home, had remarked, just before the brothers went to Kitty Hawk: “Flying and perpetual motion will come at the same time.” ”

“ Outside his father's door John waited, listening, until he was convinced that sleep had at last come to the exhausted man.
Late that same Sunday evening, when the street meeting held by Jake Vodell was over, there was another meeting in the room back of the pool hall. The men who sat around that table with the agitator were not criminals—they were workmen. Sam Whaley and two others were men with families. They were all American citizens, but they were under the spell of their leader's power. They had been prepared for that leadership by the industrial policies of McIver and Adam Ward. ”

“ Wright, who was possessed of property at Henham and Havering in Essex, died on 3 Oct. 1657, and was buried in the church of South Weald. He married Mary, daughter of John Duke, physician, of Foulton Hall, Ramsey, Essex, and Colchester. She survived him till 16 Feb. 1698, being also buried at South Weald. Of Wright's two sons, Laurence was expelled from a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, during the Commonwealth, but readmitted in 1660, and took the degree of M.D. in 1666. ”

“ Abruptly Adam Ward left the private office. Without even a look toward the men in the big outer room who had served with him for years, he passed on out to the street.
When the whistle sounded, John went out into the Mill to stand near the window where the workmen passing in line received their envelopes.
From every part of the great main building, from the yards and the several outer sheds and structures they came. From furnace and engine and bench and machine they made their way toward that given point as scattered particles of steel filings are drawn toward a magnet. ”

“ WRIGHT, Sir NATHAN (1654–1721) , judge, eldest surviving son of Ezekiel Wright, B.D., rector of Thurcaston, Leicestershire, by Dorothy, second daughter of John Oneby of Hinckley in the same county, was born on 15 Feb. 1653–4. He was entered in 1668 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but left the university without a degree, and in 1670 was admitted at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 29 Nov. 1677, and elected bencher in 1692. On the death of his father in 1668 Wright inherited a competence which enabled him to marry early, and gave him a certain standing in his native county. ”

“ Besides these works, Wright prepared an accurate epitome in English of Dugdale's ‘Monasticon’ (London, 1693, fol.) , in the dedication of which he remarks: ‘Warwickshire has produced two of the most famous and deserving writers in their several ways that England can boast of—a Dugdale and a Shakespeare.’ Wood cites a distich of an elegy written by Wright upon John Goad [q. v.] Hearne, who respected Wright, having corresponded with him upon the subject of Leland, informs us that he wrote strictures upon Wood's ‘Athenæ,’ but never published them. ”

“ He confidentially admitted to his wife, one day, that the lad was worth twice what he had agreed to pay him; "only I ain't paid him nothin' as yit," he added, with a knowing look, which his wife seemed to understand, for she replied:
"Now ye are up to another of yer capers, John Benton. There never was a man on the earth meaner than ye are!"
But Mr. Wright, who knew his neighbors well, could in no way account for the lad's willingness to endure what he knew he must be enduring, and finally his curiosity got the better of him ”

“ As he stooped again to his heavy task, he said to his mates in a voice that rumbled up from the depths of his naked, hairy chest, "Get a gate on y'—get a gate on y'—y' rough-necks. 'Tis th' boss that's a-lookin' 'round to see who he'll be tyin' th' can to next."
The men laughed.
"There's one thing sure," said Bill Connley, who looked as though his body were built of rawhide stretched over a framework of steel, "when John Ward ties the can to a man, that man knows what 'tis for. When he give Jim Billings his time last week, he says to him, says he, 'Jim, I'm sorry for y'. ”

“ For a few minutes, as they were rounding the turn of the road on the summit of the Divide where Phil and the stranger had met, the Dean looked away toward Granite Mountain. Then, as if thinking aloud, rather than purposely addressing his companion, he said, "John Acton—Honest John, as everybody called him—and I came to this country together when we were boys. Walked in, sir, with some pioneers from Kansas. We kept in touch with each other all the while we was growin' to be men; punched cattle for the same outfits most of the time ”

“ A comparison of dates shows that Dr Wright was fifty-four years old at the time of his appointment in 1613, and the Foundress was then seventy-nine. The difference of a quarter of a century makes the truth of the story not indeed impossible but improbable ”

“ It is a quiet old College,—not old as age is reckoned in Oxford,—like some great Elizabethan or Jacobean country-house turned into a College, splendid yet homely, possessing that double charm which no palace or castle or cathedral possesses in the same degree,—the charm of stately beauty and the charm of human interest which belongs to the home of generations who have spent there the happiest years of life, preparing for themselves distinction and success, or obscurity and failure. ”

“ The Wrights were startled. So great had been the secrecy about the visit of the Frenchmen that not many even in the French Government were permitted to know about their trip to Dayton. How did this mysterious Britisher know about it? The Wrights assumed that he must have been a volunteer worker in the British secret service. It was now obvious that he had crossed the Atlantic for no other purpose than to call on the Wrights and had hoped to burst in upon them while the Frenchmen were still there. After a stay of only one day in Dayton he hastened back to New York to sail on the next boat. ”

“ During the several days the correspondents were at Kitty Hawk, the Wrights knew they were being observed. From time to time they caught glimpses of men’s heads over the hilltop in the distance. Moreover, they heard each day, from members of a life-saving crew, just how many visitors had come. But they simply thought it was a good joke on the mysterious observers, whoever they were.
Arthur Ruhl, of Collier’s, had met the Wrights in Dayton about a year before. On May 14, before the final flight, he came over to the camp. ”

“ In his early life he was a teacher, from 1829 to 1833 being Professor of Mathematics in Western Reserve College. He became in 1833 Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. In 1838 he came to Boston, and for twenty years was actively engaged in editorial work, taking a stand as a most pronounced abolitionist. Since then he has been Insurance Commissioner or Actuary for the State till the time of his death. Mr. Wright has been an earnest advocate of the project for converting the "Middlesex Fells" into a park in later years. He was always an earnest, active man. ”

“ A common argument had been: “God didn’t intend man to fly. If he did, he would have given him a set of wings.”
It was the regret of his life to the Wrights’ friend, “Bill” Tate, that he missed witnessing that first flight. He had decided that “no one but a crazy man would attempt to fly in such a wind,” and made no effort to be there.
After preparing and eating their lunch, and then washing their dishes, Wilbur and Orville set out, about two o’clock that afternoon, to walk over to the Kitty Hawk weather station, four or five miles away, to send a telegram to their father. ”

“ I remember you can see into the library from the path round the house!”
He darted out, the butler, protesting, lumbering along behind him.
“Mr. Wright,” he panted as he ran, “you didn’t reelly ought ... If any one should come ...”
But Bruce Wright was already at the window. The butler found him leaning on the sill, peering with an air of frightened curiosity into the empty room.
“The glazier from Stevenish”—Bude’s voice breathed the words hoarsely in Wright’s ear—“is coming to-morrow morning to put the window in. He wouldn’t come to-day, him being a chapel-goer and religious. ”

“ In 1837 he moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to prosecute a similar work in Boston.
Nothing is more remarkable in Mr. Wright's life than his perfect self- poise and peace of mind during such a long period of external agitation. It is doubtful, in spite of his highly nervous temperament, if he ever lost a night's sleep. When he was editing the Chronotype, and waiting for the telegraphic news to arrive, he would sometimes lie down on a pile of newspapers and go to sleep in less than half a minute. For mental relaxation he studied the higher mathematics and wrote poetry— much of it very good. ”

“ Wright lived on rents derived from house property in London, but could neither read nor write, and soon found the youth useful in helping him with his accounts. Wright's wife, a believer in ‘vigils,’ died in 1624, of a cancer in the breast, and Lilly acted as nurse and amateur surgeon throughout the illness. In the summer of 1625 he remained in London during the plague. In February 1625–6 Wright married again, but he died on 22 May 1627, and Lilly accepted an offer of marriage made him by the widow, whose maiden name was Ellen Whitehaire, in the following September. ”

“ Northcliffe, after his meeting with the Wrights at Pau, became one of their most enthusiastic supporters in England.
Long afterward, he publicly made this comment:
“I never knew more simple, unaffected people than Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine. After the Wrights had been in Europe a few weeks they became world heroes, and when they went to Pau their demonstrations were visited by thousands of people from all parts of Europe—by kings and lesser men, but I don’t think the excitement and interest produced by their extraordinary feat had any effect on them at all.” ”