Evidence needed to support as father of Dea. Samuel Wright

Biography

John Wright (c. 1567-1632) of Wrightsbridge was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He entered Grey's Inn in 1588. He was a bencher and his family was one of the oldest in the liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, of the tenement Wrightsbridge in Romford. He served as deputy steward of Havering from 1625 until his death in 1632, and deputy coroner in 1603/4. He was appointed Clerk of the House of Commons in November 1612 and he remained until his death in 1632.[1]

John Wright was baptized in South Weald on 14 Sep 1569. He married, first, Martha Castell, daughter of Robert and Constance(Hayward) Castell, in East Hatley, Camridgshire on 25 Sep 1594. Martha died in Romford, where she was buried 24 Oct 1622. John Wright then married Fortune (Garroway) Blount, daughter of William Garroway and widow of William Blount, in Mortlake, Surrey on 22 Dec 1623.[2]

He's noted as dying in 1644 but according to his biography in the History of Parliament he d. in 1632. I would doubt he died in Dagenham, Essex, England, which was purchased by his nephew.

John Wright was born in 1569 to Lord John Wright and Elizabeth Linsell and was Lord John Wright's eldest son. He attended Cambridge University and then studied the law after admission to Grays Inn. By all accounts John Wright Esq. was a Puritan leaning Protestant. Lord John Wright was no doubt also a Protestant sympathizing Peer in the House of Lords (peerage granted by Elizabeth I, June 20, 1590). In 1612 John Wright, Esq. was appointed a clerk to the House of Commons and was no doubt a Puritan leaning Protestant who would perhaps have been a bit at odds with his father in the House of Lords over how to deal with the refusal of King James I to share any power of governance with Parliament. There is an existent Parliamentary document protesting some actions of King James I with John Wright's signature on it in his capacity as clerk of the House of Commons.

Such a prominent display of animosity with the King by a recognizable family member would no doubt have disturbed even a Protestant Peer of the House of Lords! It is not possible to tell how well Lord John Wright and his eldest son got along. Because Lord John lived to a ripe old age, the fact that John Wright, Esq. never inherited the estates of Wrightsbridge and Dagenhams could perhaps mean only that John Wright Esq. was already too well established and advanced in years to be considered a suitable heir for such a large estate, or it could mean that there was a rift between them or it could have been that John Esq. simply disdained the family estate and its landed gentry style of living. In any case, he had homes in London and Havering and seems only to have been a visitor at Wrightsbridge, never its Lord.

y-DNA Results

According to Geni, he was the paternal ancestor of Orville and Wilbur Wright. They are said to be descended from Robert Wright of Brook Hall, Essex, England, but the connection has not been made on Geni. Wikipedia and the Wright DNA Project assign Orville and Wilbur Wright to y-DNA haplogroup E-V13.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Apr 12 2016, 15:33:21 UTC
• WikiTree contributors, "John Wright (1569-abt.1632)," WikiTree: The Free Family Tree, (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wright-282 : accessed 15 February 2024).

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Castell pedigree

The Visitations of Cambridgeshire, 1575 and 1619.

References

1. The Visitations of Cambridgeshire, 1575 and 1619. The Publications of the Harleian Society Vol XLI. 1897. Castell Pedigree p42-43. < link >; < link >
2. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/122587838/robert-castell shows as born 1503 in Somersham, Huntingdonshire District, Cambridgeshire, England and died there on an unknown date, linked as father of Agnes (Castell) March
3. The visitation of London, anno domine 1633, 1634, and 1635 … v.17 by Howard, Joseph Jackson, 1827-1902; Chester, Joseph Lemuel, 1821-1882 viewed at https://archive.org/details/visitationoflond17howa/page/n379/mode/2up
4. The visitations of Essex by Hawley, 1552; Hervey, 1558; Cooke, 1570; Raven, 1612; and Owen and Lilly, 1634 : to which are added miscellaneous Essex pedigrees from various Harleian manuscripts, and an appendix containing Berry's Essex pedigrees v.13 by Met
5. Venn, John Archibald. Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1924) Part 1, Vol. 4, Page 474. His career and that of his son, John, are confused. See Tarbert. < Archive.Org >
6. https://archive.org/details/p1alumnicantabri04univuoft/p1alumnicant...
7. VIII. The Officers and Servants of the House The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
8. Tarbert, Jesse, "The Identity and English Ancestor of Rev. Samuel Stone's First wife: Rebecca Wright, Granddaughter of Rev. Richard Rogers" in the New England Historical Genealogical Register, Vol. Vol. 176, Fall 2022, pp. 401-402, citing parish registers of St. Peter, South Weald, Essex; East Hatley, Cambridgeshire; St. Edward the Confessor, Romford, Essex; and Mortlake, Surrey. < AmericanAncestors >