Jabez Wright (25 April 1852 – 10 September 1922) was an English-born Australian politician. Wright was born at

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, the son of Jabez Gladstone Wright. He worked in

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

before moving to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, eventually settling in Broken Hill around 1888. On 15 January 1878 Wright had married Honora Kearney, with whom he had four children. He worked as a carpenter and then as an undertaker, and was a member of the

Australian Workers' Union The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s and currently has approximately 80,000 members. It has exer ...

. From 1896 to 1902 Wright was an alderman at Broken Hill. He rose to be mayor from 1900 to 1901, the first Labor Mayor in the world. He was elected to the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

in 1913 as the

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

member for Willyama. With the introduction of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

in 1920 Wright was defeated running for Sturt, but filled the vacancy caused by the murder of Percy Brookfield in 1921. Wright himself caused a vacancy a year later when he died at Bondi.

References

1852 births 1922 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly English emigrants to Australia People from Greenwich Mayors of Broken Hill People from Broken Hill, New South Wales Australian carpenters Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales {{Australia-Labor-NewSouthWales-MP-stub