High Street Congregational Church (now URC), Lancaster
George Wright’s Christian faith would have been an important factor in his belief in the League of Nations
© Janet Nelson
George Wright (1850-1927), who attended the inaugural meeting of the Lancaster League of Nations Union (LNU) on 5 October 1920 in his role as Mayor of Lancaster, was the sole surviving partner, by 1893, of his father’s building firm and timber business in Queen’s Square, Lancaster. He was President of the Lancaster Master Builders’ Federation three times as well as having other business interests. He became a local councillor after 1900, subsequently an Alderman and then Mayor in 1919/20 and was described as probably ‘the most powerful debater on the Council,’ a credit to the education he had received at the Boys’ National School.
Wright was one of the leading members of the congregation at High Street Congregational Church and, in politics, ‘very prominently associated with local Liberalism,’ becoming President of the Lancaster Divisional Liberal Association in his later years. His religious and political beliefs led him to support the League of Nations and, as an all-round committee man, to play an important role in developing the Lancaster branch of the LNU, presiding over the early AGMs and other meetings from 1921. He was elected Chairman in 1924 but was forced to retire through illness the following year, becoming a Vice-President until his death in March 1927. After his death he was credited with much of the success of the branch’s early success by ‘inspiring… the officials in anything that made for the spreading of the gospel of peace.’ His funeral was widely attended.
References/Further Reading:
Lancaster Guardian, 2 Apr 1927 & 21 Apr 1928.
For more information on the family firm: G. Brandwood (with others), 2012. The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley & Austin. Swindon: English Heritage.