Author: Wright, Waller Rodwell
Biography:
WRIGHT, Waller Rodwell (1775-1826: ODNB)
He was baptised on 20 Apr. 1775 at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, the eldest of six children of Matthias Wright, magistrate and sometime alderman, and his wife Elizabeth Rodwell, who had married at Botley, Hampshire, in 1772. He went to school in Bury St. Edmunds and proceeded to Trinity College Cambridge (matric. 1792) but appears not to have taken a degree. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1793 and called to the bar in 1800. He served as British Consul-General for the Ionian Islands (1800-04). He collected materials for a cultural history of the islands but his papers were dispersed or destroyed when the French ransacked his library at Zante in 1804. The poem listed here was only a small part of the project but was generally admired and singled out for praise by Byron (q.v.) in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). Wright was an early admirer of Childe Harold (1812-18), having read parts of it in manuscript-- given to him by their mutual friend R. C. Dallas (q.v.). On his return to England in late 1804, he was appointed Recorder at Bury St. Edmunds. He married Mary Ann Bokenham on 16 Nov. 1805. He was later appointed president of the court of appeals at Malta, where an only daughter was born in 1817. He died at Valetta, Malta, on 20 Apr. 1826 and was buried at Msida. His wife, Mary Ann, died at Boulogne in 1829. Who took over the upbringing of their daughter is unknown. She married in 1839 soon after coming of age. (ODNB 25 Nov. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 25 Nov. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 25 Nov. 2022; Bury and Norwich Post 29 June 1803, 6 Feb. 1805, 20 Nov. 1805, 26 July 1826, 20 May 1829; MH 1 Aug. 1839) AA
Other Names:
- W. R. Wright