Joseph Wright was born in Cork and was educated at the Friends' School, Newtown, County Waterford, and was apprenticed to a grocer in Clonmel. During 1859-1860 he assisted the Professor of Geology in Trinity College, Dublin. He had made a collection of carboniferous fossils which he presented to the British Museum. In 1866 he was elected a member of the Geological Society of London, and two years later he came to live in Belfast, where he concentrated his geological studies on foraminifera, becoming an acknowledged authority on this subject. He was a member of the Cork Cuvierian Society, the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, the Palaeontographical Society, and an honorary member of various other societies. His unique collection of 'forams' and a collection of his scientific papers are in the National Museum of Dublin.

Born:	1834
Died:	1923