Henry Charles Wright

Three people and two dogs by the verandah of a house

  

 Unidentified Maori group, Captain William Shilling (back, kneeling) and the photographer's daughter, Amy Elizabeth Wright, photographed at Karaka Bay, 1889-90

  

Unidentified ship docked at a Wellington wharf, 1890-1910

  

 View of part of the rocky shoreline at Island Bay, Wellington. 

Amy Elizabeth Wright, the daughter of the photographer, 

is seated on the shore with a cocker spaniel 

and an unidentified dog in her lap, 1890s

  

Wharf, boat and group at Seatoun, circa 1890s. Shows two men, one in work clothes and the other in a suit with bowler hat. Amy Elizabeth Wright stands with a greyhound to the left.

 

Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand

Henry Charles Wright

Mr. Wright was born in 1844 and died in 1936, aged 92. He built a grand villa with its formal gardens to house his family in the late 1880s in Newtown, Wellington. He was secretary of the Wellington Meat Export Company and had family interests in Coromandel gold mining (which is why the inner-city suburb of Newtown has a Coromandel Street as well as a Wright Street). He was also a money lender and debt-collector, a photographer who documented early Wellington, a book lover and a gardener. Collections of his photographs and books are among the historical treasures stored at the Alexander Turnbull Library and his orchid and tropical plant collection was donated to the Wellington Botanic Garden.

 Amy Elizabeth Wright sitting in a boat at Island Bay. 

Shows Tapiteranga Island in the background, ca. 1890s

  

 Group alongside the Pilot Station at Worser Bay, Wellington, 1889-1910

  

 Group in a domestic garden, 1890s

  

 Henry Wright and his son Reginald Wright in the 

vegetable garden of their Britomart Street home, 1892

  

 Henry Wright picnicking with his son Reginald Clarke Wright, daughter 

Elizabeth Minnie Clarke, and Amy Elizabeth Wright (reading), ca. 1890s

  

Karaka Bay, Wellington, near the path to Tai Paku Paku Road, 1889-1910

 

Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand