John Skirrow Wright
John Skirrow Wright (1822 – 15 April 1880) was one of the prominent pioneers and social improvers of the 19th century in Birmingham, England; and inventor of the Postal Order. He was involved in many aspects of Birmingham's mid-Victorian life that were for the benefit of its citizens including the General Hospital, the Chamber of Commerce, The School of Art, the Children's Hospital and the early Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund and the Blue Coat School.
Born in 1822, he came to Birmingham in 1838 where he was employed at the button manufactory of Smith and Kemp, where his talents marked him for a swift ascendancy from traveller to partner in 1850. As with many of Birmingham's great patrons, he was a non-conformist and whilst sharing the profits of his enterprise, he nonetheless opposed factory legislation, arguing that it interfered with the individual employer.
Whilst President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce he came up with the idea of Postal Orders, to enable the poorer people to have the same facility to buy goods and services by post. The rich had bank accounts and could write cheques. A delegation of the Birmingham Chamber went to the annual meeting of Chambers of Commerce in London and John Skirrow Wright presented the idea, complete with all the details on how it would work including all the Postal Order values proposed. At first London bankers were against the idea, thinking it would affect their businesses, and the idea was rejected. However, eventually the bankers realised that the people who would use postal orders were not their customers and therefore no threat to their business. Consequently, at the Annual Meeting a year later John Skirrow Wright presented the idea again and this time it was accepted and the Postal Order system was started exactly as Skirrow Wright and Birmingham Chamber had proposed.
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