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[picture2]

Robert Thomas Wright

NAME2
Born: November 25, 1864,
Monaghan, Co. Monaghan, Ireland
Born:
Died: Died:
Father: Robert WRIGHT Father:
Mother: Sarah Jane REED Mother:
Married: 1898?

Robert T. WRIGHT is the brother of Margaret Louisa WRIGHT (wife of David JACKSON) and Martha WRIGHT (wife of Thompson BROWN). Details of other links will likely be nailed down when we get access to a copy of the probated will of George Austin Thompson BROWN, son of Martha & Thompson BROWN. The link is of interest in creating a fuller sense of the family culture and connections in international banking. I suspect a connection with the WRIGHT family of Gilford Castle, but have little to go on at this point beyond proximity and intuition as well as the brokerage firm of Wright & Hornby in Hong Kong.

Service Record of Robert T. WRIGHT from Group Archives of the HSBC

1883 Joins London office of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
1886 May - East to join Hong Kong office
1891 Aug - received special increase from $200 to $225 a month " having rendered valuable service over the past five years" (HSBC Board Minutes)
1898 April - Hong Kong, 'Bookkeeper', requested and given permission to marry
1898 Sept - Board votes him a sum of $2500 on the occasion of his marriage in view of the "important post he held and the most efficient way in which he
performs his duties" (HSBC Board Minutes)
1901 March - On leave
1902 Hong Kong
1904 Amoy [now Xiamen], acting Agent
1905 Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar], Agent
1907 April - On leave
1908 Hankow [Wuhan], Agent
1909 Kobe, Agent
1911 Yokohama, Manager
1924 Kobe, Manager
  Service ends between August 1924 and 1925

There is also an interesting description of the Yokohama Earthquake in The History of the Hongkong Shanghai Bank, Vol III, Frank H.H. King, Cambridge Press, 1988 p.141-143

The staff were able to stuff cheques from the clearing in their pockets, carry two cash boxes, and put large numbers of ledgers and other books into a cart commandeered from the Post Office, which was situated next door. unfortunately the books could not be got to the ships and they were subsequently burnt. Most of the staff, however, got on board the Empress of Australia, which had been preparing to leave port when the earthquake struck; J. Caldwell arrived too late, but boarded the French Andre Lebon.

When the staff were able to return temporarily to search the ruins, they recovered various other items, including securities from the safe which Caldwell reached just in time, although a looter was making off with some of the packages; R. T .Wright, the Manager, had the securities insured by cable from the ship.


In the footnotes relating to this account, King directs us to: the C.R. Rice account in J.R. Jones, “Personalities “file from James Cardwell, oral history interview and from J.R. Jones “Branches” file all in Group Archives. See also “Branches” p. 95, p. 97. This will have to await further exploration.

 

 

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