C. W. Wright: a most professional amateur

Abstract

Claud William Wright (born 1917) is the author of almost 150 articles and monographs, the first published as a fifteen-year-old schoolboy in 1932, the latest published in 2003. The scope of his research spans Cretaceous stratigraphy, ammonites, echinoids, asteroids and crabs, and includes chapters in the Geological Survey Memoir on the Geology of the Country around Weymouth, Swanage, Corfe and Lulworth, the Palaeontolo-graphical Society Monographs The Ammonoidea of the Lower Chalk, The Ammonoidea of the Plenus Marls and Middle Chalk, British Cretaceous Crabs and British Cretaceous Echinoids . He is the author of the Cretaceous Ammonoidea volume of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, and the asteroid section of the Echinodermata volumes. His researches have been recognized by the award of the Prestwich Medal of the Geological Society of London, the Stamford Raffles Award of the Zoological Society of London, the Foulerton Award of the Geologists' Association, the Strimple Award of the Paleontological Society of North America, the H.H. Bloomer Award of the Linnean Society, and Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Hull and Uppsala. Of most note is that all of this was achieved by an amateur, whose professional career was as a Senior Civil Servant in Whitehall, first in the War Office and Ministry of Defence, thereafter in the Department of Education. Childhood collections made with his brother Edward Vere Wright (d. 2001) in Yorkshire led to joint publications, not only in geology and palaeontology, but also archaeology, most notably on the discovery of the North Ferriby Bronze Age boats. This collaboration extended through the war years and into the 1950s. A seminal encounter as an Oxford undergraduate was with W.J. Arkell, and this led to the progression from naturalist to scientist of international reputation in an active and prolific career as a most professional amateur, spanning seventy years.