Richard Wright (Unitarian)

Richard Wright (7 February 1764 – 16 September 1836) was an English Unitarian minister, and the itinerant missionary of the Unitarian Fund, a missionary society established in 1806.

The eldest son of Richard Wright, he was born at Blakeney, Norfolk, on 7 February 1764. His father was a labourer; his mother, Anne (d. 11 October 1810), claimed cousinship with Sir John Fenn. A relative (who died in 1776) sent him to school, and would have done more had his parents not become dissenters. He served as page, and was apprenticed to a shopkeeper, joined (1780) the independent church at Guestwick under John Sykes (d. 1824), and began village preaching on week nights; for which he was excommunicated. The Wesleyans allowed Wright to preach, but he did not join them.

For a short time he ministered to a newly formed General Baptist congregation at Norwich. Here he made the acquaintance of Samuel Fisher, who had been dismissed on a moral charge from the ministry of St. Mary's Particular Baptist church, Norwich, and had joined the Sabellian Particular Baptists, founded by John Johnson. Fisher ministered for periods of six months alternately at a chapel in Deadman's Lane, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and a chapel erected (1778) by his friends in Pottergate Street, Norwich: Wright was engaged to alternate with Fisher at both places. Shortly the arrangement was broken, and Wright gave his whole time to Wisbech.

His views rapidly changed; he brought his congregation with him from Calvinism to unitarianism. Some time after they had been disowned by the Johnsonian Baptists, he gained their admission to the General Baptist assembly. His influence extended to the General Baptist congregation at Lutton, Lincolnshire, which had become universalist (1790). This introduced him (1797) to William Vidler, to whose periodical, the Universalist's Miscellany, he contributed (in the last half of 1797) a series of letters (reprinted Edinburgh, 1797). Vidler and he exchanged visits, and he made Vidler a unitarian (by 1802). At this time Wright wrote much on universalism.

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