After the town of Windsor was surveyed in 1811, a humble blacksmith set up shop in George Street, just below the south-western corner of what is today New Street.
This was John Wright, a convict who had arrived in July 1806. At first, as a blacksmith, Wright was assigned to John Palmer, the commissary who had large properties at Woolloomooloo and at Hawkesbury. Only a few years later, he had a ticket of leave and had set up the business.
On his small allotment Wright constructed a dwelling and premises which had a flat, sloping roof. Wright’s finances were precarious, as he went into debt to establish the town’s first smithy.
He hoped to make a good living manipulating iron into the myriad of items needed by townsfolk and farmers in an era before mass production. His hand-made products ranged from nails and bolts to horseshoes and tools. He earned a bit extra at the auction of the estate of the late Andrew Thompson, as did James Richards and others, by purchasing calico shirts for merchant Robert Campbell Junior.
John Wright had married Celia Dean at St John’s Church, Parramatta in April 1811, where one of the witnesses was Ann Emery, of Parramatta. Celia had been convicted in April 1800 at the Old Bailey in London, arriving in March, 1803.
He almost lost his business a few times. Like many others in the district who had not been able to repay their debts, Wright was served with writs whereby the court instructed the Provost Marshal to auction his belongings. This happened on several occasions between December 1812 and 1817. Wright managed to refinance his debt each time, avoiding the sale of his ‘new Skilling and Blacksmith’s Shop’, and in 1813, saving his blacksmith’s tools.
After his ticket of leave was renewed in 1814, Wright confidently expanded his business to take on an apprentice, Thomas Turner. However Thomas absconded from his indenture in June 1815, prompting Wright to advertise that he would prosecute anyone who concealed the boy.
The business remained viable, with or without his apprentice, until in 1817 he had lost his tools. He then sold the land and business, for £60 to Thomas Rickerby in April 1817, and continued living there until July, when he entered a deal with Rickerby to allow him to rent back the premises and continue as the smithy, leasing tools for £2 per month for a year. However, by 1818, Wright was out of business.
In the early 1820s, when Wright was a free man, it seems he was working as a blacksmith in Sydney, and sometime between 1825 and 1828 he became the smithy at Evan, having finally applied for a grant of land. He described himself as having earned ‘an honest livelihood by laborious industry...his conduct...uniformly distinguished by decorum and propriety’ and John MacHenry, the Circuit Judge, and Henry Fulton, Castlereagh’s clergyman, agreed. John Wright appears to have kept working until he died in Windsor in April 1829.
