Robert Wright

Robert Wright (1666 – 12 October 1739) was the son of Sir Robert Wright, Chief Justice of the King's Bench (1687–1689) who died in Newgate Prison following the Glorious Revolution. In the same year Robert was called to the bar at Middle Temple and became a judge. Robert took the role of Judge of the Common Pleas in the North East of England and married widowed land-heiress Alicea Pitt (née Johnson) (d.1723), daughter of John Johnson of Sedgefield and settled in Sedgefield before returning to London following the Hanoverian succession in 1715. Meanwhile, he fathered seven children with his mistress Isabella (1675 – 21 November 1752) in Bloomsbury, before sailing for colonial Charles Town to become Chief Justice of the colony of Carolina, and subsequently South Carolina, and a plantation owner. He died there in 1739. His son Sir James Wright went on to become a colonial governor of Georgia. Biography Born into the wealthy Wright family of Kilverstone in Norfolk Robert graduated from Caius College Cambridge and became a judge after being called to the bar at Middle Temple. He was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas of the County Palatine of Durham in the North East of England and married the widow Alicea Pitt (née Johnson) (d.1723) (note that some records such as the marriage records in County Durham archives give the spelling as ‘Alicea and some, such as the tomb of Baldwin Pitt give it as Alicia there in 1689 and as his wife was the heir of her father John Johnson's land he is likely to have gained the titles to the land involved. It seems he gained titles to further land and property when his sister Anne Wright (d.1731) married local landowner Freville Lambton (1661–1731). Robert built a mansion house in Sedgefield in 1707 (now The Manor House in Sedgefield) on the land he had gained from Anne's marriage. Meanwhile, Robert took a mistress in Bloomsbury, Isabella (1675–1752) with whom he had seven children between 1703 and 1716, the first when he was 37 and Isabella was 28. As a member of the land-owning aristocracy and likely to have influential friends in London's Hanoverian political and social society of the time Robert is likely to have been a Whig and following the Hanoverian succession his interests lay more in the capital than in Sedgefield. His wife Alicea died in November 1723 and was buried on 27 November 1723 in St. Edmunds Church, Sedgefield.