| 1 | Name: | William Wright | |
| Year Elected: | 1774 | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1735 | ||
| Death Date: | 9/19/1819 | ||
William Wright (March 1735–19 September 1819) was a naturalist, a physician, a slaveholder, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1774. He was born in Perthshire, Scotland, and he began his medical training as a young man, first as a surgeon’s apprentice and then by observing lectures at the University of Edinburgh. He joined the navy in 1758 and was posted as a surgeon’s mate in the West Indies during the Seven Years War. After the war ended, he briefly returned to Britain and managed to secure an MD through a personal connection without formally attending medical school. In 1764 he partnered with another doctor, Thomas Steel, in Jamaica and the two of them treated enslaved people and free people of color in the area. Despite these firsthand encounters with the institution of slavery, Wright was politically conservative and opposed to the abolitionist movement. Together, he and Steel owned as many as thirty-three enslaved people. Throughout his time in Jamaica, Wright began to explore an interest in naturalism. He diligently collected specimens of the island’s flora and wrote papers on their potential medicinal properties. He found a patron for this work in APS Member Sir Joseph Banks, a prominent scientific leader. They remained close for several decades, and some of the specimens that Wright sent to Banks may still be found at the Natural History Museum in London. Throughout his life, Wright sought social and academic recognition, and he achieved it through his participation in multiple well-regarded societies and prominence as a public official. He became the Surgeon General of Jamaica in 1774, a fellow of the Royal Society in 1778, a member of the Royal Medical Society and the president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1801. (DNB) | |||