Morton Wright

George Morton Wright (23 August 1914 – 26 October 1940) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Family
The son of George Edgar Wright (1883-1954), and Annie May Wright (1888-1936), née Morton, George Morton Wright was born at Mount Gambier, South Australia on 23 August 1914.

He married Lorna Helen Payne (1912-1988), later Mrs. William Beeston Ross, in 1940.

Swimming
Wright had a successful swimming career before playing football.

Football
Initially linked with Geelong's Second XVIII, he was cleared to Hawthorn on 25 May 1938, where he went on to play a single senior game, against Fitzroy, on 13 June 1938, at the Glenferrie Oval.

Death
A fireman, Wright died when the two upper floors and roof of a waste-paper factory collapsed on him while he was fighting a fire -- that had been lit by two boys -- in Collingwood on the night of 26 October 1940.

At the time of his death he had passed all of the tests required to train as a RAAF pilot; but, when the Fire Brigade declared that it would not release him to the RAAF, Wright made an appeal direct to the Victorian Premier, Albert Dunstan, and Wright was waiting to hear the results of the Premier's efforts on his behalf.