JS Wright & Sons: A proud history
Born in 1874, Jessie Samuel Wright lived at Warren Park in Little Leighs where he ran a building company
He would often meet a gentleman named Montague Odd at The Compasses pub in Littley green, Chelmsford. Mr Odd was the son of Amos Odd, who ran a cricket bat manufacturing company started in Surrey in 1882. Cricket was a sport that was becoming increasingly popular, and Amos needed a steady supply of English Willow, so Montague asked Jessie if he knew of any trees that would be available.
J.S. Wright & Sons is born
Once Jessie knew what to look for, he decided it would be more lucrative than the building industry, so he bought The Willows in Little Leighs and founded J. S. Wright in 1894.
Once the business was up and running, Jessie would do all the carting of trees and delivering of clefts using a horse and cart. In those days the clefts were split from the rolls and left to stand for eighteen months before being sold air dried.
A family affair
Jessie’s sons Stanley, Albert, and Carleton were involved from a very early age. During the first world war Jessie was in the Special Constabulary, allowing the business to continue operating. Occasionally soldiers would march from Colchester Barracks to Warley Barracks and would stop in the village for their lunch.
The officers would come into The Willows and have lunch with Jessie.
Around 1922 Princess Marie Louise visited the company and took time to look at the process and inspect the clefts. She arrived by horse and coach, much to the delight of the local children.
During the second world war, the site was nearly destroyed when a German bomb landed in the field at the back of the yard. Jessie died in 1963, aged 88.
A new generation for JS Wright & Sons
After Jessie passed away it was Carleton’s job to do the purchasing of trees and the administration. Stanley oversaw the running of the yard and did the sawing and final grading and Albert did the splitting and initial grading.
The business was small but still employed up to 25 men, as this was before a lot of the mechanisation. Carleton, Albert and Stanley each had a son – David, Nicholas and Peter. They would all be involved in all aspects of the business. Large teams of men would go felling all over the country, and journeys would take far longer than they would nowadays due to the roads back then.
All the trees were felled and sawn into lengths using a cross-cut saw, which sometimes needed four men to use. All the rolls would be carried out on men’s shoulders and the lorries were loaded by hand. A crane was used to load the rolls that were too big to lift. Forklifts, chainsaws and other modern equipment has now taken on the job. In the 1950s the yard moved into the middle of the village, there it continued to grow and the system of sawing the blades from the split clefts was started.
Relocating to Coles Farm
In 1971 the company moved to the present site at Coles Farm.
By this time Peter had a son in the business but a tragedy struck in 1980 when Robert (known as Bobby) was killed on his motorbike. This was a great blow to the company as Bobby was an integral part of the business and a good friend to all.
Unfortunately, Carleton Wright sadly passed away on 3rd March 2009 aged 96. He lived for the business and is sadly missed by all the family and the business.
Jessie’s great grandsons Oliver (left) and Jeremy (right) are both directors of the company today
A 21st century company with a proud history
Peter Wright then passed away on 26th January 2010 at the age of 84, he retired at 65 and gave his working life to the company.
The family are still very much involved in the business. The business is run by the chairman Nicholas Wright (Jessie’s grandson) who has recently been awarded an MBE for Services to Industry, Jeremy Ruggles (Jessie’s great grandson) and Oliver Wright (Nick’s son and Jessie’s great grandson). The company now produces more cricket bat blades than ever, with 40,000 clefts having left our Coles Farm site in 2023.
JS Wright also planted a total of 35,000 new trees across the country last year, and we continue to work with landowners across 2,500 sites all over the UK.