History

Thomas Wright and his son Thomas James Wright both held the post of Clerk of the Works at Westminster Abbey. Thomas has a memorial stone outside what is now the Song School in the south cloister (originally the entrance to his office) and Thomas James is buried in the west cloister.

Thomas was born on 2 February 1822 at Boston in Lincolnshire, son of farmer James Wright of Friskney in that county. He was employed as a carpenter by Mr Cubitt, the builder, who sent him in 1846 to work on Osborne House (Queen Victoria's residence on the Isle of Wight) and on the restoration of Whippingham church. He married Emma Cribb of Cowes and their other child was Emma Elizabeth (Lizzie) who married a Wright cousin. In 1871 he came to work at the Abbey. The Clerk of Works is responsible for the day to day maintenance of the Abbey fabric and is in charge of the various workmen and also acts as sexton (digging the graves in the Abbey). During his time David Livingstone, Charles Darwin, Robert Browning and Lord Tennyson were buried. He also took a great interest in the restorations of the outside stonework of the Abbey, under the Abbey Surveyors Sir George Gilbert Scott and J.L.Pearson, and wrote a typescript account of the Abbey buildings.  He died at Catford, south London, and was buried at Nunhead cemetery on 16 May 1906. His stone reads:

"To the memory of Thomas Wright a faithful servant of this Church. Clerk of the Works 1871-1906".

Thomas James Wright was born on 15 January 1851 and married Margaret Doyles. Their eight children were all born at 8 Smith Square, Westminster and baptised at St John the Evangelist church - Thomas Cribb, Margaret Emma, Daisy, Christina, Walter, Roland George, Dorothy (later Mrs Hunt), and Edith. He worked as a carpenter at the Abbey from about 1873 and succeeded his father in 1906, when he moved to the Clerk of Works residence at 16 Dean's Yard in the Abbey precincts. On his retirement in June 1928 he was called "The Grand Old Man of Westminster". In his time he superintended the digging of the grave of the Unknown Warrior (1920) and the poet Thomas Hardy. He was buried on 9 December 1928 and the gravestone reads:

"Thomas James Wright Clerk of the Works. Born 1851. Died 1928. A loyal servant of the Abbey for fifty five years".

His son Walter (born 1887) worked at the Abbey for 52 years and became Foreman of Works. He retired in 1952 and died in 1979.

Copies of the photos can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.

Thomas's typescript and some family letters are in the Westminster Abbey archives collection.