A fighter for rights of women and slaves

Born in Dundee on September 6 1795, Frances was one of the three children of Camilla Campbell and James Wright, a wealthy linen manufacturer and political radical.

Tragically, Fanny, as she was known as a child, was orphaned at the age of just three and went to live in England with her maternal aunt.

She returned to Scotland at the age of 16 to stay with her great-uncle, developing a love for the Highlands and a passion for writing which saw her complete her first book by the time she was 18.

She travelled to the US in 1818, touring the country with her younger sister before returning to Scotland.

Wright was a vociferous opponent of organised religion, marriage and capitalism, fighting strongly for the emancipation of slaves, as well as birth control and sexual freedom for women.

She returned to the States in the mid-1820s, spending time in a utopian community in Indiana, then founding the Nashoba Commune near Memphis, based around a model farm community where slaves could work to earn their own freedom while being provided with education.

Nashoba was built on mosquitoinfested land and after it failed to provide decent harvests she was forced to leave it due to illness.

In 1831 in Paris, Wright married French physician Guillaume D’Arusmont, giving birth to a daughter the following year.

She spent her last years with her daughter, dying in Cincinnati at the end of 1852 from complications resulting from a fall on an icy staircase.

She has a plaque on the wall of her birthplace at 136 Nethergate.