John Wright gave distinguished service to the community in many areas, notably as a member of Bourne Urban District Council where he was elected chairman for 1969-70. He later became a member of South Kesteven District Council, serving a two year term as chairman from 1980-82 and during his time with Bourne Town Council, was elected Mayor of Bourne in 1987-88.

A dedicated Tory and chairman of the local Conservative Association, one of his proudest moments came in 1977 when, as a member of South Kesteven District Council, he was in the official party which welcomed the leader of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, who was to become Prime Minister two years later, when she was making an official visit to her home town of Grantham where the council's offices are also situated.

He was also a member of Bourne United Charities and served as chairman for a year with a similar spell as chairman of the Rotary Club of Bourne, also being awarded their prestigious Paul Harris Fellowship. He was also a governor of the Abbey Primary School and an active freemason with the Hereward Lodge in Bourne. One of his main areas of concern during his time as a councillor was housing for the elderly, serving as chairman of the SKDC housing committee for a long spell and overseeing the building of the Stanton Close old people's complex of 26 retirement flats in Manning Road, Bourne, where he subsequently laid the foundation stone in August 1984.

John Henry Wright was born at Burton-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, son of Grace and William Wright, and after school, completed an apprenticeship at the Thomas Webb and Corbett glassworks. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he joined the Sherwood Foresters and as a member of the British Expeditionary Force to France, survived the mass evacuation of Allied troops from the beaches and harbour at Dunkirk in 1940.

After the war, he worked in the gas industry, moving to Bourne in 1951 as technical sales representative for the East Midlands Gas Board at their showrooms in North Street, retiring in 1982. Throughout his time in Bourne, he was a supporter of the Abbey Church where he served spells as sidesman and churchwarden while enjoying many leisure pursuits such as gardening, caravanning and walking.

John Wright lived for much of his life in Kingsway, Bourne, where his wife Christine died in 2004, but in his final years he moved to the Church Terrace Nursing Home at Cheadle, Cheshire, to be near his daughter, Marion, and died there on 2nd August 1991, aged 91. His funeral took place at the Abbey Church Bourne, on 18th August followed by cremation at Peterborough.

See also Stanton Close