Poets

David McKee Wright was an Irish-born poet and journalist, active in New Zealand and Australia.

Early Life

Wright was born in the town of Ballynaskeagh, County Down, Ireland, on 6 August 1869, the second son of William Wright, a Presbyterian missionary, and his wife, Annie McKee. His mother remained only briefly in Ireland following his birth and he was cared for by his grandmother, Rebecca McKee, until his parents returned from missionary work in Syria. Annie Wright died in 1877, shortly after the family had moved to London.

David was educated at the Glascar School, Ballynaskeagh, then at Pope's School, London, and the engineering section of the Crystal Palace School. Illness kept him at home for much of his youth; he read voraciously and began to compose poetry. He ran away from his family on three occasions, in part because of his unhappiness at his father's marriage, in September 1880, to Sophia Colyer Davison. The evangelical, scholarly and philanthropical tastes of his family also oppressed him and they mocked his aid interest in poetry. At the age of 17 Wright was diagnosed as having a spot on the lung and in 1887 was dispatched to New Zealand in hopes of a cure.

New Zealand

In Christchurch Wright was briefly reunited with the family of his uncle, David McKee, and his grandmother, who had emigrated earlier. He then journeyed to the Aparima River and Lake Manapouri, and was employed as a shepherd at Puketoi station and later at Scobie Mack..