Wallace W. Wright (1847-1884) was born in Washington, New Hampshire. He was the son of a prominent Universalist minister, Rev. Nathan R. Wright (1810-1884). Wallace Wright was a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, studying with her in 1870. In 1871, he moved briefly to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he and Mary A. Spofford (1845-?) set up a healing practice together. He returned soon after and denounced Eddy and Christian Science in a series of scathing articles published in The Lynn Transcript. The Transcript then published an exchange of views between Eddy and Wright. In response to Wright's criticism, Eddy announced in the February 2, 1872 edition of the Transcript that she was "preparing a work on Moral and Physical Science." This work would ultimately become Science and Health. Wright, who was trained as a banker, became clerk and assistant treasurer at the Lynn Institution for Savings, where he was working at the time of his death. He and his wife were both killed (along with more than 100 passengers and crew) in January 1884 when the passenger steamer SS City of Columbus ran aground off Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

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