THOMAS

See also:

• WRIGHT, CARROLL DAVIDSON (1840-1909)
• WRIGHT, CHAUNCEY (1830-1875)
• WRIGHT, JOSEPH (1734-1797)
• WRIGHT, SILAS (1795-1847)
• WRIGHT, THOMAS (1809–1884)
• THOMAS WRIGHT (1810—1877)
• WRIGHT, WILLIAM ALDIS (1836– )

WRIGHT (1810—1877)  , English antiquary, was born near Ludlow, in Shropshire, on the 21st of April 181o . He was descended from a Quaker family formerly living at Bradford, Yorkshire . He was educated at the old grammar school, Ludlow, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1834 . 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 . I2mo), which was followed during the next forty years by a very 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 Academie 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 city of Uriconium, near Shrewsbury, of which he issued a description . He died at Chelsea on the 23rd of December 1877, in his sixty-seventh year . A portrait of him is in the Drawing Room Portrait Gallery for October 1st, 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 .

His

chief publications are—Queen Elizabeth and her Times, a Series of Original Letters (1838, 2 vols.); Reliquiae antiquae (1839-1843, again 1845, 2 vols.), edited with Mr J.0 . 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, &c.; 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 Societ; St Patrick's Purgatory (1844); Anecdota literaria (1844) ; Archaeological Album (1845, 4to) ; Essays connected with England in the Middle Ages (1846, 2 vols.); Chaucer's Canter-bury Tales (1847–1851, Percy Society), a new text with notes, re-printed in i 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 (185o, 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 0855); Jo. de Garlandia, De triumphis ecclesiae (1856, 4t0, Roxburghe Club) ; Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English (1857) ; A Volume of Vocabularies (1857; 2nd ed., by R . P . Wulcker, 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 (186o, 4to, Roxburghe Club); Essays on Archaeological Subjects (1861, 2 vols.); Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England in the Middle Ages (1862, 4t0, reproduced in 1871 as The Homes of other Days) ; Roll of Arms of Edward I . (1864, 4t0) ; Autobiography of Thomas Wright (1736-1797), his grandfather (1864); . History of Caricature (1865, 4to); Womankind in Western Europe (1869, 4to); Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of lath Century (1872, 2 vols., " Rolls " series) .