Joseph Wright was an exceptional Bradford citizen in the 19th century. And so was Joseph Wright. Yes, there were two of them making names for themselves, although one arrived on the scene 44 years after the other.

It's the later one that most people know about - the Joseph Wright who was born in Thackley in 1855, and as a child spent time in the Clayton workhouse with his mother and siblings before the family moved to Idle and then to Woodend, Windhill.

It was from there that young Joseph, at the age of six, began to earn a living taking workmen's tools from the local quarry in a donkey cart to be sharpened by a blacksmith. A year later he was working half-time as a doffer at Salts Mill. When his schooling ended, he could neither read nor write.

As a 15-year-old woolsorter he heard fellow workmen reading aloud from newspapers and determined to improve himself. English mastered thanks to painstakingly picking out passages in Pilgrim's Progress and the Bible, he moved on to study French and German and attended evening classes in mathematics at Bradford Mechanics' Institute.

He progressed so well in his studies that at 21, using £40 savings, he went to Heidelberg University for a term. Back in Bradford, he taught for some years before heading for Heidelberg again in 1885 where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy.

Three years later he accepted a lecturing post at Oxford, where he was eventually appointed Professor of Philology. It was there that he set up his massive research project into dialect, establishing committees all around the country to collect the millions of words and phrases which eventually appeared in the six volumes of the English Dialect Dictionary - a unique work of scholarship which is a lasting memorial to a little lad from Thackley who managed to make good.

The other Joseph Wright came on the scene in 1811, in Wyke. I know nothing about his background, I'm afraid, but according to local historian Wade Hustwick, writing in the Telegraph & Argus in 1951, he was the village schoolmaster in Wibsey from 1828 to 1861, teaching in premises which were built by public subscription in 1821.

According to Hustwick: "Joseph Wright was a fine disciplinarian and teacher. Scholars came to his school from as far away as Clayton Heights, Buttershaw and Low Moor. He endeavoured to teach by practical methods, and would send his students out into the country to measure a field and calculate its area, or reckon up the contents of a haystack. He also taught graceful and rapid handwriting and many of his scholars rose to high positions in Bradford business and public life.

"Every Monday each boy and girl passed Mr Wright's desk to pay the fees which were only a few pence a week. Some were too poor to pay but were never dismissed from the school for their poverty."

The old school burned down in 1894 and bigger new premises built to replace it, though Wibsey Village School was still known locally as "Wright's School" even though Wright himself was long gone. Today it's private houses.