of Ely; and thirdly, Anne, daughter of Sir William Scroggs [q. v.], lord chief justice of England. By his second wife he had four daughters and one son, Robert, father of Sir James Wright [q. v.] By his third wife he had three daughters. His portrait was painted by John Riley in 1687 and engraved by Robert White.
[Foss's Judges of England, vii. 280–4; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 95–117; Granger's Biogr. Hist. iv. 310; Macaulay's Hist. of England; Mackintosh's Hist. of the Revolution, 1834, pp. 266–74; Lives of the Norths, ed. Jessopp (Bohn's Standard Library), i. 324–6; Records of Lincoln's Inn, 1896, i. 268; Hatton Corresp. (Camden Soc.), ii. 50, 73; Davy's Suffolk Collections in Addit. MS. 19156 ff. 233, 244–6; Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, 1805, i. 545; Burnet's Hist. of his own Time, 1823, iii. 225; State Trials, ed. Howell, xi. 1353–71, xii. 26–112, 183–524; Woolrych's Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys, 1827; Jesse's Court of England during the Stuarts, 1840, iv. 419; Journals of the House of Commons, x. 149, 184, 185 205; Parliamentary History, v. 339; Kennet's Complete Hist. of England, 1706, iii. 468; Townsend's Catalogue of Knights, 1833; Official Return of Members of Parliament.]
WRIGHT, SAMUEL (1683–1746), dissenting divine, eldest son of James Wright, was born at Retford, Nottinghamshire, on 30 Jan. 1682–3. His grandfather, John Wright (d. 1 Feb. 1684–5), was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (admitted on 22 Nov. 1636, but did not graduate); was ordained by presbyterians (13 Aug. 1645) to the chapelry of Billinge, parish of Wigan, Lancashire; was nominated (2 Oct. 1646) a member of the fourth presbyterian classis of Lancashire; was ejected at the Restoration, and from 1672 preached at Prescot. His father, James Wright (d. 1694), was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford (B.A. 1669), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (M.A. in December 1673), but became nonconformist through the influence of William Cotton, a wealthy ironmaster of Wortley, near Sheffield, whose daughter Elinor (d. 1695) he married. He preached at Attercliffe and Retford as a nonconformist.
Left early an orphan, Wright was brought up in his mother's family, who sent him to boarding schools at Attercliffe, near Sheffield, and Darton, near Wakefield. In 1699 he entered the nonconformist academy of Timothy Jollie [q. v.] at Attercliffe. Leaving in 1704, he became chaplain at Haigh, Lancashire, to his uncle, Cotton, on whose death he repaired to another uncle, Thomas Cotton (1653–1730), presbyterian minister at Dyott Street, Bloomsbury. For a short time he was chaplain to ‘the Lady Susannah Lort’ at Turnham Green, preaching also the Sunday evening lecture at Dyott Street. In 1705 he was chosen assistant to Benjamin Grosvenor [q. v.] at Crosby Square, and undertook in addition (1706) a Sunday evening lecture at St. Thomas's Chapel, Southwark, in conjunction with Harman Hood. On the death (25 Jan. 1708) of Matthew Sylvester [q. v.], he accepted the charge of ‘a handful of people’ at Meeting House Court, Knightrider Street, and was ordained on 15 April; his ‘confession of faith’ is appended to ‘The Ministerial Office’ (1708, 8vo), by Daniel Williams [q. v.] His ministry was very successful; the meeting-house was twice enlarged, and had the honour of being wrecked by the Sacheverell mob in 1710. He was elected a Sunday lecturer at Little St. Helen's. His Calvinistic orthodoxy was unimpeachable, but, probably influenced by Grosvenor, he took (1719) the side of non-subscription at the Salters' Hall conference [see Bradbury, Thomas]. He contributed also to the ‘Occasional Papers’ (1716–19) [see Avery, Benjamin], the organ of whig dissent. His popularity suffered no diminution. He was chosen (1724) one of the Salters' Hall lecturers, and elected (1724) a trustee of Dr. Williams's foundations. On 1 May 1729 the diploma of D.D. was granted to him by Edinburgh University. In 1732–3 he had a sermon debate with Thomas Mole (d. 1780) on the foundation of virtue, which Wright could trace no higher than to the divine will. A new meeting-house was built for him in Carter Lane, Doctors' Commons (opened 7 Dec. 1734; removed in 1860). Among protestant dissenters he ranked as a presbyterian; his will explains his separation from ‘the common parochial worship’ as an act of service to ‘catholic christianity.’ His delivery was striking; it is said that Thomas Herring [q. v.] (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) often attended his services, as samples of effective utterance (Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1798, p. 325). His communion services were remarkable for their fervour, and he was a sedulous pastor. Hughes admits a ‘particular turn of temper’ which was not always agreeable. The satiric verses (1735?) describing London dissenting divines open with the lines:
Behold how papal Wright with lordly pride
Directs his haughty eye to either side,
Gives forth his doctrine with imperious nod,
And fraught with pride addresses e'en his God
(Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1798, p. 314; Notes and Queries, 11 May 1850, p. 454; Christian Life, 16 Sept. 1899, p. 439). John
