Thomas+Wright+Obit.

OBITUARY NOTICE OF THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., HONORARY MEMBER. The distinguished antiquary, Mr. Thomas Wright, was born at Ludlow in 1810, and received the rudiments of his education in the Grammar School there. Thence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated; and where thus early in life he distinguished himself by researches in the precious MSS. of the libraries. One of his college friends was the late eminent Saxon scholar, John Mitchell Kemble, who in the pre- face to his translation of the Saxon epic poem, Beowulf, pays a high compliment to Thomas Wright. With J. 0. Halliwell (now Phillipps), the great Shakespearean scholar, he also became inti- mate, and their friendship was lasting. In some early publications, such as the " Reliquiae Antiquae," in two vols., they were associated. On quitting Cambridge he at once made choice of his way of life. He dedicated himself to literature, and, coming direct to the metropolis, entered on the arduous career of authorship. On the whole, his early career was successful. He supported himself by his pen, and won a reputation which gained for him many and valuable friendships. Guizot appreciated his worth, and Obituary Notice of 17Tomas Wright, M.A. 535 secured for him at an early age the distinction of being one of the Corresponding Members of the French Institute. In 1843 he joined Mr. Roach Smith in founding the British Archaeological Association, and this was the beginning of many active steps taken in the interests of archaeology which should be remembered with gratitude. The names of Mr. Wright's principal works will be familiar to all our Members. For the Percy, the Caxton, and Early English Text Societies, and of the Roxburgh and Warton Clubs, he did fine editorial work, while, by more popular books, he gave impetus to the study of the treasures of the past. To the general public he is best known by " The (Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon," which passed through three editions; " England under the House of Hanover," 1848; " Popular Superstitions of Eng- land," 1845; " Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages;" "Womankind in Western Europe," "The Life of Gillray ;" and beyond all in respect of popularity, his "History of Caricature and the Grotesque in Literature and Art." It may be interesting to add that it was at the special request of Napoleon III. that he translated the Imperial " Life of Julius Caesar " into English. In 1853 Mr. Wright became a member of the Ethnological Society of London, and in 1857 was elected secretary, in succes- sion to Mr. Richard Cull. In 1858, and again in 1862, 1864, 1865, 1866 and 1868, he served as one of the Secretaries of the Section of Geography and Ethnology in the British Association. In 1860 it was resolved by the Council of the Ethnological Society that Mr. Wright's labour on their behalf had become so onerous as to demand assistance, and Dr. Hunt was accordingly appointed as his colleague. At the Cambridge meeting of the British Association in 1862, and afterwards before the Ethnological Society, he read an account of the human remains found in the excavations at Wroxeter, which were, as he pointed out, of three classes: 1st, the regular cemetery of Roman Uriconium, outside its walls; 2nd, remains found within the city, probably of persons massacred when it was taken and destroyed; 3rd, other skele- tons interred within the walls, which presented a peculiar obliquity of shape, which he attributed to artificial deformation. By 1863, Dr. Hunt hacl formed the resolution of establishing the Anthropological Society of London, and had accordingly retired from his association with Mr. Wright in the Ethnological Society, his place being supplied by Mr. Francis Galton. Dr. Hunt showed his respect for his late colleague, however, by immediately proposing Mr. Wright's election as one of the

536 Obituary Notice o.f Thomnas Wright, ALA. twenty-five Honorary Members of the Anthropological Society, and as it is the good fortune of this Institute to inherit every graceful act of both of the Societies of which it is composed, Mr. Wright became by that fact an Honorary Member of the Anthropological Institute on its formation. In 1865 Mr. Galton retired from the Secretaryship of the Ethnological Society, and was succeeded by Mr. D. W. Nash, Mr. Wright continuing in office. On 21st November, 1865, he read before the Society an im- portant paper on the true assignation of the bronze weapons, &c., supposed to indicate a bronze age in Western and Northern Europe, in which he attacked the received opinions with earnest- ness and great learning, seeking to show that leaf-shaped bronze weapons bear a resemblance amounting to identity with the swords figured on Roman coins and monuments. That he never saw cause to withdraw these opinions appears from his repeti- tion of them in his latest work, entitled " Uriconium," though a paper in reply was read on 13th March, 1866, by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. F. Lubbock. On 24th April, 1866, Mr. Wright read a paper on the inter- course of the Romans with Ireland, in answer to an article which had appeared in the Anthropological Review, iv. 180 (not 266, as wrongly indexed). Mr. Wright maintained the existence, during the whole period of the Roman power in Britain, of Roman settlements in the north-east of Ireland. On 26th June, 1866, Mr. Wright exhibited to the Society a drawing of a bronze dagger, said to have been found at Wroxeter. In 1869 Mr. Wright and Mr. Nash both retired from the office of secretary, and Mr. Wright was elected Vice-President, an office whtch he continued to hold till the Ethnological Society was merged in this Institute. It will tlhus be seen that Ethnological Science owes him, besides the important papers to which reference has been made, twelve years' services as Secretary of that Society, as well as editorial work throughont the whole of its Second Series of Transactions, forming seven volumes. It may be added that Mr. Wright was for many years ail Honorary Member of a Society with which this Institute has always enjoyed a close alliance-the Royal Society of Literature. In 1837 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and retired from the Society in 1876, having in the meanwhile made some valuable contributions to Arch6sologia. His long and useful life closed on Sunday, December 23rd, 1877, and his funeral took place at Brompton Cemetery on the 29th of the same month. The titles of his books fill many pages of Allibone, and of his contributions to current literature no record has been kept. He was simply indefatigable in production, and it has been truly remarked that " no Englishman of our times has so intelligently treated so many different departments of literary research." Most of the accounts of his life which have appeared omit mention, for example, of his " Christianity in Arabia," and of " Two volumes of Vocabularies illustrating the general Archaeo- logy and History of our Country, and the forms of elementary education and of the languages spoken in our country from the 10th to the 18th century; and Feudal Manuals of English History," compiled at the request and at the exclusive cost of Mr. Joseph Mayer. His services to literature, in branches which are certainly not those that lead to fortune, were not ungracefully acknowledged in his later years by an annual grant from Her Majesty's Civil list. Mr. William Sawyer happily describes him as "one of the most indefatigable of authors and kindliest of men. In anti- quarian circles the name of Thomas Wright is known and respected all over the world; the work he did is valued; the impulses he gave are felt." Obituary Notice of Thomas Wright, M.A., Honorary Member.Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 7(1878), pp. 534-538Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841442  Accessed: 08/11/2010 20:53