James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity afforded him. He earned numerous important government posts and amassed an incredible fortune. An England-born grandson of Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, following his father’s appointment as the chief justice of that colony. Young James served South Carolina in several capacities, public and ecclesiastical, prior to his admittance to London’s famed Gray’s Inn to study law. Most notably, he was appointed South Carolina’s attorney general and colonial agent to London prior to becoming the governor of Georgia in 1761.
Wright’s long imperial career delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony and offers new insights into loyalism and the American Revolution. Through this lens, historian Greg Brooking, Ph.D., discusses his new in-depth biography of Wright, which explores his life in the context of imperial and Atlantic history, Indigenous borderlands, race and slavery and popular politics.
About the Speaker
Greg Brooking is a social studies teacher at North Springs High School who earned his Ph.D. from Georgia State University. He has published articles in the Georgia Historical Quarterly and the Journal of the American Revolution. In 2024, he was awarded the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina Fellowship to conduct research for a forthcoming biography of Henry Laurens, a leader of the Revolutionary movement from South Carolina who served as president of the Continental Congress and U.S. minister to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War.