Jerome and Susannah Bright attended services in the Congregational chapel at Rendham, a few miles from Saxmundham.

By 1854, Bright was living in St John's Wood, but left London in 1858 because of health reasons and settled with his daughters in his brother's house in Saxmundham.

[note 2] Bright painted in various locations in England, Scotland, Wales and across Europe, working in oils, watercolour, chalk and pencil.

[6] Bright developed friendships with other leading artists, including Samuel Prout, Henry Jutsum, David Cox, George Lance, William Collingwood Smith, William Leighton Leitch and James Duffield Harding.

His use of chalk and stump on buff paper is similar to that of Robert Leman (1799–1863), while John Middleton strongly influenced his use of watercolour, particularly in around 1847.

In 1844 Queen Victoria purchased Bright's Entrance to an Old Prussian Town (London, Royal Collection) from the New Society of Painters in Watercolours.

His professional success extended to working collaboratively with other artists, including John Frederick Herring and William Shayer, where Bright usually contributed the background.