Obituaries Australia

J. T. Wright, n.d.

from Pastoral Review, 15 May 1913

The death of Mr. J. T. Wright, one of the founders of the well-known New Zealand firm of Messrs. Wright, Stephenson and Co., at the age of eighty-five years, was reported in our last issue. Although well known by name throughout Otago and Southland, he himself was a comparative stranger to the community, for he was of a reserved nature, and never took a prominent part in public affairs.

He was born at Lowfell, County Durham, England, in 1828, and educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he also obtained his commercial training. In 1852 he left London in the Castle Eden, and settled in Melbourne, where five years later he commenced business on his own account as a merchant. In 1860 he was compelled to return to England for medical advice, but the next year returned to Melbourne. However, he did not stay long, as the discovery of gold about that time in Otago, in New Zealand, attracted him with Mr. R. M. Robertson to Dunedin, where the two entered into partnership and commenced business under the title of Wright, Robertson and Co. During intervening years, the firm developed into a very big concern, and in 1899 Mr. Wright retired, since when he has spent much of his time with the members of his family resident in Australia, but always paying Dunedin an annual visit in the summer months.

In 1863 Mr. Wright married the eldest daughter of Mr. Thomas Reynolds, and six children of the union survive their parents, Mrs. Wright having died in 1901. There are three daughters and three sons living, the two elder daughters being married, one to Mr. W. H. Buckland, of Hobart, and the other to Mr. J. F. Guthrie, of Melbourne. Of the three sons, the eldest is farming in Southland, the second holds a commission as captain in the Northumberland Fusiliers, and the youngest is a director of his late father's firm. The eldest son of the marriage was killed through an accident in 1901.