Cyril Wright (1905-1961)
In August 2016, during a dulcimer exhibition at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket, we met the daughter of Cyril Wright.
Cyril Victor Wright had played the dulcimer and his daughter later sent this photograph of him playing in the garden of his house at Sunnyside, 29, Wallace Street, Ipswich, where the family had lived since some time between 1911 and 1921. After his father’s death in 1926, Cyril continued to live with his widowed mother and on marriage in 1941 his wife joined him in the family home where he then lived until his death in 1961. It’s thought that the photo dates from the 1940s/50s. According to his daughter, Cyril had been a Salvation Army member – whether this is linked to his musical activities is not known.
Cyril’s parents came from the Stowmarket area and moved around between Ipswich and Coggeshall (near Braintree, Essex) prior to his birth. He was the tenth of twelve children and his father worked in the malting industry and later became a self-employed chimney sweep.
From the sole photograph we have seen, Cyril’s dulcimer looks to have been a large one, and unusually, he is playing it standing up, with the dulcimer mounted on a wooden frame.
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