John Laird Wright (1882-1934) of Anglo-Persian Oil Co
1934 Obituary [1]
JOHN LAIRD WRIGHT was for seventeen years a member of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's staff in various parts of Persia.
He was born at Elderslie, Renfrewshire, in 1882, and received his technical education at Paisley Technical College.
In 1900 he commenced a five years' apprenticeship with Messrs. Bow, McLachlan and Company, of Paisley, for whom he was engaged principally in the installation of electrical and hydraulic machinery in ships of various types.
He then spent a year with the Arrol-Johnston Motor Car Company, and carried out tests on a new type of engine.
Late in 1906 he joined a tramp steamer as engineer and sailed to Japan. In the following year he became a foreman in Messrs. Macdonald and Company's shipyard in Hong Bong, but left in 1908, following his appointment as engineer to the Green Island Cement Company, of Macao. He remained with the firm until he took up his position with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1910. He took charge of the work at Chiah Sourkh, where the original wells had been drilled, and subsequently supervised the first exploratory drillings at Quishm Island. At Abadan, works involving an outlay of over £500,000 were constructed by the company and Mr. Wright supervised the laying out and erection of the entire oil refinery. The plant was self-contained and included storage tanks, distillation plant, pump houses, a plant for manufacturing containers, and a railway and wharf.
In 1919 Mr. Wright went to Masjid-i-Sulaiman as assistant fields manager and in 1923 he was appointed fields manager.
On his retirement in 1927 he returned to England, and lived at Ifield, Sussex, where he died on 10th January 1934.
He had been an Associate Member of the Institution since 1913.