Australian Dictionary of Biography

Horatio George Anthony Wright (1827-1901), medical practitioner, was born at Maidstone, Kent, England, son of Robert Wright and his wife Caroline, née Caldicott. Educated at Huntingdon, he studied medicine under James Paget and William Lawrence at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London (M.R.C.S., 1850; L.S.A., 1851). He arrived in Sydney on 10 December 1853 in the Dominion with his wife Ellen, née Hunter, whom he had married at Clapham Independent Chapel on 28 August 1848. Registered by the Medical Board in February 1854, he set up practice in Hunter Street. In March 1868 he was one of the first surgeons to attend the Duke of Edinburgh after he was shot by H. J. O'Farrell at Clontarf.

Elected to the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1872 Wright became a councillor next year; he was honorary treasurer in 1879-85 and 1893-1901 and a vice-president in 1885-86 and 1891-92. His principal scientific contributions to the society were as a microscopist when a member and sometime chairman of Section E (microscopy), on which he served from 1877-92. He often exhibited examples of the latest techniques and of his own high skills in micro-photography. In 1885 he presented a Ross-Zentmeyer binocular microscope to the society. Chairman of the medical section in 1878, he served at various times on the astronomy and physics and sanitary science sections. In December 1874 he had been an astronomical assistant to H. C. Russell, taking observations for the transit of Venus with an 8½-ins (22 cm) Browning telescope. Wright's influence on the Royal Society was 'unobtrusive' at a time of marked improvements in its scientific standards and prestige under A. Liversidge and others. Although frequently approached he refused to become president.

For forty-eight years Wright was one of the best-known doctors in inner Sydney, conducting his flourishing practice from his residence in Wynyard Square and supervising 'the births of many thousands of Australians'. He was consulting surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital and highly esteemed for his 'quiet genial manner' by patients and colleagues who, when he was the innocent victim of a blackmail conspiracy for alleged misconduct with a female patient, gave him a 'handsome' monetary 'solatium'.

Early in 1880 Wright was a founder and first honorary treasurer of the New South Wales branch of the British Medical Association and often took part in professional discussions. He was appointed to the Medical Board in April 1886, where he served conscientiously, sometimes as chairman, until 1901. 'Quiet and courtly in demeanour', he was benevolent and civically minded, and 'only his immediate colleagues were fully aware of the loyal service he rendered to the cause of science in Australia'. A director of the Mutual Assurance Society of Victoria and a founding member of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (1887-88), he served as the Royal Society's member on the organizing council for the second Sydney meeting in 1891.

Aged 74, Wright died of angina pectoris at 15 York Street, Sydney, on 14 September 1901 and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley cemetery. He was survived by one of his three sons and one of his five daughters of his first wife, and by his second wife Augusta Lucy, née Barber, whom he had married in Sydney on 19 August 1890. His estate was valued for probate at £1417.