▶Date of birth:  19 September 1865        Place of birth: Wigan, Lancashire

▶Father:  Egerton Leigh Wright    Mother: Beatrice Emily Bullen

▶Spouse(s): (1) Edith Emily Funnell; (2) Gertrude Elizabeth Hart     Date(s) of marriage: (1) 1Q 1893; (2) 21 January 1917     Place(s) of marriage: (1) Pocklington, Yorkshire; (2) St John’s Church, Vartry Road, Stamford Hill, Haringey, Middlesex

▶Occupation: Clergyman

▶Lifestory: Charles was the eldest son of solicitor Egerton Leigh Wright, and his wife Beatrice. He was educated at Eton College 1879-83, and matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford in 1884, BA (third class in Modern History) 1887, MA 1894; while at Oxford (Apollo Lodge), and for the remainder of his life in other places, he was an active Member of the Freemasons, occupying several offices locally, such as Provincial Grand Deacon in Folkestone in 1915. In 1893 he married Edith Emily, daughter of Thomas Funnell (formerly his ward).

He was ordained Deacon in 1894, and Priest (Canterbury) in 1895. In 1894 he was licensed Curate of Bexley, where he remained until 1904, after which he occasionally served as an Honorary Curate there. From 1905 until 1910 he was Chaplain of St Bartholomew’s Home in Swanley. In 1911 he was recorded in the census as a Visitor to Cheltenham, staying at 1 Wellington Square, the house of solicitor Percy Haddock and his wife Cecily Dorothea; he was married but not accompanied by his wife. His first wife died in 1914, and in 1917, aged fifty-one, he married for a second time, to twenty-nine-year-old Gertrude Elizabeth Hart, while resident at Eamont Dale, Julian Road, Folkestone.

Wright died at 34 Fitzjames Avenue, West Kensington, London W4 in 1920, at the age of fifty-six, and was buried at Bexley. In his will, fearful of premature burial, he requested that a medical practitioner inspect his body “for the purpose of ascertaining and certifying that mortification had commenced”. His effects at death were sworn at over £73,000; he left his Masonic books, curios, and jewels to the Librarian of the United Grand Lodge of England.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  (visitor)      Moved from Pittville to: (visitor)

▶Date of death:   6 July 1920     Place of death: 34 Fitzjames Avenue, West Kensington, London

▶Date of burial:  12 July 1920       Place of burial: Bexley, Kent

▶Notes:  Not in Crockfords 1934      ID: 11897

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden