James Wright

James Wright (8 May 1716 – 20 November 1785) was a colonial lawyer and jurist who was the last British Royal Governor of the Province of Georgia. He was the only Royal Governor of the Thirteen Colonies to regain control of his colony during the American Revolutionary War. Biography James Wright was born in London to Robert Wright Jr, son of Sir Robert Wright, Lord Chief Justice of England. In 1730 Robert Wright, James Wright's father, accompanied Robert Johnson to the Province of South Carolina and served as its Chief Justice until 1739. James followed soon after and began the practice of law in Charleston. On 14 August 1741 he entered Gray's Inn in London. In 1747 James was named colonial attorney-general. He also began amassing plantation lands. Wright returned to London as an agent for the South Carolina colony in 1757. On one of his England visits, or on all of them, he stayed with his cousin William Rugge, the ancestor of the Rugge-Price baronets, on Conduit Street. Then, in May 1760, he was named as Lieutenant Governor to Henry Ellis in Georgia. He returned to America and took up residence in Savannah, Province of Georgia. When Ellis resigned he was appointed Governor in November 1760. He was the third, and arguably most popular, Royal Governor of the colony. He sold many of his holdings in South Carolina, acquired land in Georgia, and moved his financial operations as well. With peace temporarily established with the French and Spanish, he successfully negotiated with the Indians and the Crown to open new lands to development. In his early administration, the new lands and economic improvement fostered the development of the Georgia colony.