Family and Education

b. c.1706, 1st surv. s. of George Wrighte of Brooksby Hall, clerk of the Crown, by Mary, da. and h. of Thomas Bedford, of Doctors’ Commons; gd.-s. of Sir Nathan Wrighte, ld. keeper 1700-5, and cos. of Henry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford.  educ. Emmanuel, Camb. 1724; I. Temple 1715.  m. May 1733 Barbara, da. of Sir Thomas Clarges, 2nd Bt., M.P. 1s. 1da.  suc. fa. 1725.

Offices Held

Biography

Wrighte came of a Tory family, but had connexions with both parties in Leicester; his uncle William was recorder 1729-62, and his cousin Lord Stamford was one of the leaders of the Leicestershire Whigs. Under George II he was always classed as a Tory. In 1754 he stood on the corporation interest, and was returned after a violent contest.

In 1761 he was returned unopposed. On 11 Sept. 1762 Lord Temple wrote to Wilkes about a visit to Gayhurst, Wrighte’s seat in Buckinghamshire:1

It is impossible to express the rage of that whole family; and he pledges himself in the strongest assurances, that there never was at any period of time so ardent a zeal in the whole body of the country gentlemen, a very few placemen excepted, as at present against the ministry, which will undoubtedly appear upon the first opportunity.

And Newcastle to Devonshire on 23 Dec.:2

Great numbers of the Tories are alarmed and going out of town enraged with Mr. Fox; Sir Armine Wodehouse, Mr. Wrighte of Leicester, from whom my intelligence comes; and as they say, 70 others.

But Wrighte is included in Henry Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries and in none of the lists of those who voted against them—a contradiction not easy to explain. He appears in none of the minority lists 1763-5, nor in Rockingham’s list of July 1765.  He died 27 Jan. 1766.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Grenville Pprs. i. 470.
• 2. Add. 32945, f. 338.