THE WRIGHT TIDBITS

Family Genealogy - A Passage in Time
 

These pages last updated May 31, 2001

WRIGHT SURNAME ORIGIN
The following information was contributed by June Ross. Please be sure to look at her family group sheet - all in Scotland.
I am very fortunate as I have a small notebook that Peter Wright of Glasgow wrote in 1800, "Respecting the Name of Wright and the Wrights of Aithry, Drumdrouls, Loss and Foodie etc." This gave me a great deal of information about the Wrights and enabled me to do further research. I have copied the first few paragraphs before he starts the genealogy.
"The name of Wright seems to very ancient, as we find from History, that John Wright a famous architect, constructed a bridge (Kildean) over the Forth nfar Stirling which upon drawing a pin separated in the middle; this stratagem being put in execution gave Sir William Wallace a decided victory in a battle fought 13th September 1297 over the English when part of their army had passed & part upon the Bridge,the Pin was drawn out by Wright himself who was suspended in a basket under the Arch and escaped unhurt. The English Army being thus divided & surprised, many were killed & drowned and suffered in the pursuit through Stirling, St. Ninians, and the Forwood. Wright was ever after that known by the Name of the Pin.
The great Barony of Aithrey in the Parish of Logie near Stirling seems to have been in the possession of Wright long before the reign of James 1st, King of Scotland; one of that family, Bishop James Wright, baptised a son of James the 3rd in the year 1473 in the Castle of Stirling; a large hall was erected in the course of six weeks for that occasion. The Bishop's son John was Armour Bearer to King James the 4th & by him knighted; but happening in a Duel to kill a man in Stirling, the friend of King James, he fled to Ireland where he remained till his death, His eldest son sometime after came back to Scotland & endeavoured to get a gift of his father's escheat but to no purpose; so he was obliged to take the farm of Nethertown of Inverallan, where he & his heirs laboured for several years."