James Whitaker Wright (9 February 1846 – 26 January 1904) was a company promoter and swindler, who committed suicide at the Royal Courts of Justice in London immediately following his conviction for fraud.

At an early age he was sent to Shireland Hall School in the Staffordshire town of Smethwick, a boarding establishment funded by charitable donations which catered for the sons of clergymen of all denominations.

He was also the elder brother of John Joseph Wright, who invented the reversible trolley pole, transmitting electricity from an overhead wire to the motors of a tram or trolleybus.

[3] Wright returned to England, and promoted a multitude of Australian and Canadian mining companies on the London market.

Wright's career as a swindler peaked in the 1890s, when he formed the London and Globe Company which floated a variety of stock and bond issues dealing with mining.

Wright called some of these stocks "consols", the term used by the British government for state bond issues that were solid and reliable.

Everything was apparently working well in Wright's empire, when in 1900 he sought to float a bond issue for the building of the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the London Underground's Bakerloo line).

Ownership of these properties granted Wright Lordship of the Manor and control of Hindhead Common and the Devil's Punch Bowl.

Whitaker Wright began to develop his new properties as a single estate, Witley Park, creating three lakes, the largest of which covered fifty acres of farmland.

[4] The remainder of the estate was divided into lots for sale, and funds raised locally enabled the purchase of Hindhead Common, which was transferred to the National Trust.