Joseph the reformer
Joseph Brotherton spoke out about the abuses of child labour. In 1849 he was instrumental in making Salford the first municipal authority in Britain to establish a library, a museum and an art gallery. This man was a leading religious and political figure in Lancashire. He was one of those Victorians like Elizabeth Fry who helped to bring social change and establish a decent living standard for the ordinary working classes. An extraordinary man.
So I thought that William much impressed by Joseph Brotherton had called his third son after his hero. Which was true but there are further connections that I learned later.
A relative who was researching the Wrights found me on the net. He sent me another piece in this fascinating puzzle. He had discovered that our original John Wright had been born in 1776 in North Meols. John left North Meols sometime before 1808 to make his way in the world. He ended up in Salford where he had a Dyers business in Pendleton in Tanners Lane. He married on 24th December 1808 at Manchester Cathedral to Betty Mather who was 16. John was 32 years old at the time. Betty Mather came from Bolton. Her father was Samuel Mather and her mother Mary Haslam. So my family does have a strong Bolton background and it is through Betty that I began to trace my family into the middle ages. The Mathers attended the Bank Street Unitarian Chapel in Bolton. Betty was Christened there on 22nd April 1792.
Beware of meat
The intriguing part is that in 1809 John attended the Bible Christian Church where Reverend William Cowherd was delivering a sermon about abstaining from the flesh of animals. Here is a story found in “A history of the Bible Christian Church Salford 1809 to 1909”.
“Cowherd’s pulpit advocacy of vegetarianism began on Sunday, January 29th 1809 when his text was “And God said, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things, but flesh, with the life thereof, shall ye not eat.” John was so impressed that when he went home he told his young wife all about the sermon and that he would never eat meat again and she, loyal soul that she was, said “If thou won’t touch it neither would I,” and promptly threw their bacon and potato Sunday dinner out!
I had puzzled over the names of John Wright’s children. William the eldest child wasn’t born until 1816 some eight years after the couple had married. Somehow his name didn’t seem to be John’s father’s name. I have two candidates for John’s father. Richard Wright married to Anne Swift and Thomas Wright married to Ellen Blundell, but there could be others. The name John Wright was very popular in 1776 in North Meols. It occurred to me that it was a family tradition to name their sons after someone from this Bible Christian Movement so perhaps John had named his son William after Reverend William Cowherd (whose surname is a bit unfortunate for a vegetarian).
John died 3rd April 1850 and is buried in Bolton Parish Church. The inscription on his gravestone reads “Here resteth the body of John Wright of Bolton (a vegetarian and teetotaler of 40 years and 9 months) who departed this life April 3rd 1850 aged 74 years. His works do follow him and his memory’s blest. In memory of Elizabeth daughter of John and Betty Wright who died February 29th 1832, aged 18 months.”
John Wright was one of the founders of the Bolton Temperance Society in 1833.
John Wright and family moved to Bolton between 1826 and 1829 when his name appears in the Bolton Directory as a “Silk and Woollen Dyer, and Clothes Cleaner” at 122 Deansgate. After he died Betty continued the business until her death on 11th April 1871.
I still have many questions to ask about the Wrights. My research isn’t finished yet. I shall have to visit North Meols the next time I am in England.
Coincidentally I have a real connection to my ancestor John Wright. I am a Baker in a Vegetarian Bakery in Whitehorse the capital of the Yukon.
Frances Hall
Frances
Hall
Hall