Thomas Wright, 1711-1786 of Byers Green, Co. Durham, astronomer, architect and antiquary

Thomas Wright was born at Byers Green, Co. Durham. In 1730, at the age of 20, he set up his own school in Sunderland, where he taught mathematics and navigation, and sold mathematical instruments. Through the good offices of the Earl of Scarbrough, his instrument the pannauticon was approved by the Lords of the Admiralty, and the central period of his career was spent in London and in the country houses of aristocratic patrons. A polymath, Wright achieved distinction not only as a mathematician, astronomer and instrument maker, but also as an architect and garden designer, and antiquary. In his best known and most influential work, An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe (London, 1750), Wright 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, an idea which was taken up, transformed and greatly elaborated by Immanuel Kant, after reading an abstract of Wright's work in a Hamburg periodical. Largely self-taught, Wright never quite succeeded in breaking into the scientific establishment, but his career illustrates how an able man with scientific interests could make his way by lecturing, teaching the children of his patrons, and furthering their architectural and gardening projects. In retirement he returned to Byers Green to prosecute his studies, and built a small observatory tower at Westerton nearby.