Wright was born at Byers Green in County Durham being the third son of John and Margaret Wright of Pegg's Poole House. His father was a carpenter. He was educated at home as he suffered from speech impediment and then at King James I Academy. In 1725 he entered into clock-making apprenticeship to Bryan Stobart of Bishop Auckland, continuing to study on his own. He also took courses on mathematics and navigation at a free school in the parish of Gateshead founded by Dr. Theophilus Pickering. Then, he went to London to study mathematical instrument-making with Heath and Sisson and made a trial sea voyage to Amsterdam. In 1730, he set up a school in Sunderland, where he taught mathematics and navigation. He later moved back to London to work on a number of projects for his wealthy patrons. That was before retiring to County Durham and building a small observatory at Westerton.|alt=
Astronomy
Wright's publication An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe explained the appearance of the Milky Way as "an optical effect due to our immersion in what locally approximates to a flat layer of stars." His idea was taken up and elaborated by Immanuel Kant in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. Another of his ideas, which is also often attributed to Kant, was that many faint nebulae are actually incredibly distant galaxies. Wright wrote: Wright emphasised that Earth and the human race are insignificant and transitory parts of a vast universe: He was also credited with expanding the Grand Orrery to include Saturn. The orrery is now at the Science Museum, London.
Garden design
Wright has been credited with work for William Capel, 3rd Earl of Essex at Cassiobury Park in Watford, illustrating his designs in A Walk in Cassiobury Gardens and Views of Cassiobury. In Grotesque Architecture of 1767 there is a design for a rockwork bridge to decorate "the fine piece of water" he had "with great pleasure seen... at Cassiobury", believed to be by Wright. A man of talents, he also gave the Earl's daughters mathematical instruction. Another patron was the Earl of Halifax, at Horton House. In the 1750s, he laid out the grounds of Netheravon House, Wiltshire. He designed in 1769 the folly or eye-catcher known as Codger Fort at Rothley, Northumberland, on the Wallington Hall estate.
