Whitaker Wright

From Freepedia

English company promoter (1846-1904).

Born James Whitaker Wright in Stafford, England, the son of James Wright (1815-1870), a dissenting Methodist minister, and Matilda Whitaker (1815-1890), a tailor's daughter. The eldest of five children, he spent his early years in various parts of England with his itinerant preaching father and family. In 1861, according to the census of that year, at the age of 15, he was a printer in Ripon. Between 1866-1868, he tried his hand at his father's vocation, as a Methodist preacher, but retired on the grounds of ill-health.

On the death of his father in 1870, the family emigrated to Toronto, Canada.