Thomas Wright (antiquarian)

Thomas Wright c. 1859

Thomas Wright (23 April 1810 – 23 December 1877) was an English antiquarian and writer.

Life

Wright was born near Ludlow, Shropshire, descended from a Quaker family formerly living at Bradford. He was educated at Ludlow Grammar School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he graduated in 1834.^[1]

While at Cambridge he contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine and other periodicals, and in 1835 he came to London to devote himself to a literary career.

His first separate work was Early English Poetry in Black Letter, with Prefaces and Notes (1836, 4 vols. 12mo), which was followed during the next forty years by an extensive series of publications, many of lasting value. He helped to found the British Archaeological Association and the Percy, Camden and Shakespeare Societies. In 1842 he was elected corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries as well as member of many other learned British and foreign bodies.

In 1859 he superintended the excavations of the Roman town of Viroconium Cornoviorum (Wroxeter), near Shrewsbury, and issued a report.

A portrait of him is in the Drawing Room Portrait Gallery for 1 October 1859.

He was a great scholar, but will be chiefly remembered as an industrious antiquary and the editor of many relics of the Middle Ages.

He died in his 67th year at Chelsea, Surrey, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Selected works

• Queen Elizabeth and her Times, a Series of Original Letters (1838, 2 vols.)
• Reliquiae antiquae (1839–1843, again 1845, 2 vols.), edited with Mr JO Halliwell-Phillipps
• W. Mapes's Latin Poems (1841, 4to, Camden Society)
• Political Ballads and Carols, published by the Percy Society (1841)
• Popular Treatises on Science (1841)
• History of Ludlow (1841, etc.; again 1852)
• Collection of Latin Stories (1842, Percy Society)
• The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman (1842, 2 vols.; 2nd ed., 1855)
• Biographia literaria, vol. i. Anglo-Saxon Period (1842), vol. ii. Anglo-Norman Period (1846)
• The Chester Plays (1843–1847, 2 vols., Shakespeare Society)
• St Patrick's Purgatory (1844)
• Anecdota literaria (1844)
• Archaeological Album (1845,410)
• Essays connected with England in the Middle Ages (1846, 2 vols.)
• Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1847–1851, Percy Society),^[2] a new text with notes, reprinted in 1 vol. (1853 and 1867)
• Early Travels in Palestine (1848, Bohn's Antiq. Lib.)
• England under the House of Hanover (1848, 2 vols., several editions, reproduced in 1868 as Caricature History of the Georges)
• Mapes, De nugis curialium (1850, 4to, Camden Society)
• Geoffrey Gaimar's Metrical Chronicle (1850, Caxton Society)
• Narratives of Sorcery and Magic (1851, 2 vols.)
• The Celt, the Roman and the Saxon (1852; 4th ed., 1885)
• History of Fulke Fitz Warine (1855);
• de Garlandia, De triumphis ecclesiae (1856, 4to, Roxburghe Club)
• Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English (1857)
• A Volume of Vocabularies (1857; 2nd ed., by RP Wülcker, 1884, 2 vols.)
• Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (Paris, 1858, 2 vols.)
• Malory's History of King Arthur (1858, 2 vols., revised 1865)
• Political Poems and Songs from Edward III to Richard III (1859–1861, 2 vols; "Rolls" series)
• Songs and Ballads of the Reign of Philip and Mary (1860, 4to, Roxburghe Club)
• Essays on Archaeological Subjects (1861, 2 vols.)
• Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England in the Middle Ages (1862, 410, reproduced in 1871 as The Homes of other Days)
• The Roll of Arms of the Princes, Barons, and Knights who Attended King Edward I to the Siege of Caerlaverock, in 1300 (1864, 4to)
• Autobiography of Thomas Wright (1736–1797), his grandfather (1864)
• History of Caricature (1865, 4to)
• On the Worship of the Generative Powers during the Middle Ages of Western Europe (1865) (Attributed) Appended to the 1865 reprint of Sir Richard Payne Knight's An account of the remains of the worship of Priapus. Scanned facsimile available on Internet Archive
• Womankind in Western Europe (1869, 4to)
• Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of 12th Century (1872, 2 vols., Rolls Series).

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Wright, Thomas (antiquarian)". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
•  Lee, Sidney (1900). "Wright, Thomas (1810-1877)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 63. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 
• Thompson, Michael Welman. "Wright, Thomas (1810–1877)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30063.  (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links

• Works written by or about Thomas Wright at Wikisource

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Wright (antiquarian).

• Works by Thomas Wright at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Thomas Wright at Internet Archive