Born at Grovesend in Elgin County, Canada West (now Ontario), he was ordained in the Anglican priesthood in 1883 after attending Wycliffe College.

In 1894, as successor to Sir Daniel Wilson,[1] he was appointed professor and head of the Department of History at the University of Toronto from which he retired in 1927.

A believer in the historian's moral duty to interpret the past for society's present needs, Wrong viewed Canadian history in terms of the country's British and French origins and the American presence.

Formal in habit and something of an anglophile in taste, Wrong influenced a generation of students.

Massey bought the adjacent property in 1918 and converted it into his principal residence, Batterwood House, in 1927.