Wilson, William

Epithet: of Add MS 35805

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000a

William Wilson was the Labour Member of Parliament for Coventry South (later Coventry South East) from 1964-1983. He proposed the successful Divorce Law Reform Private Member's Bill in 1967.

From the guide to the Qualidata: William Wilson Divorce Law Reform Papers, c.1967-1968, (Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)

Epithet: flour merchant, of Ayr

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000006

Epithet: witness of Wolley Ch xii.92

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001084.0x00011b

Epithet: of Exeter

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William Wilson was born in 1913 and qualified as a solicitor in 1939. He served in the army during the Second World War in North Africa, Italy and Greece and was demobilised in 1946. During the 1950s he fought several elections unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate in the Leamington and Warwick constituency. In 1964 he won the seat of Coventry South, which he represented until 1974. He was the MP for Coventry South East until his retirement from parliament in 1983. William Wilson was a member of the Commons Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration from 1970-1979. He was also a member of Warwickshire County Council from 1958-1970 and he was re-elected to that body in 1972. He was the leader of the Labour group of Warwickshire County Council, 1972-1993. William Wilson retired as a solicitor in 1999.

From the guide to the Papers of William Wilson, circa 1960s-1970s, (Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)

Epithet: of Coningsby

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000f

Epithet: witness of Wolley Ch xii.91*

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001084.0x00011a

Title: 2nd Baronet

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001072.0x000271

Epithet: Curate of Toddington, county Bedfordshire

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000005

Epithet: of Croglein

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000010

Epithet: Curate of Petworth, county Sussex

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000004

Epithet: of Add MS 4322

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000e

Epithet: Searcher at Quebec

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000015

Epithet: Master of the ship 'Pheasant.'

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000008

Title: 1st Baronet

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001085.0x00019f

Epithet: of East Greenwich

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000011

From the guide to the William Wilson papers, 1848-1849, null, (State of Maryland and Historical Collections)

Wilson, William (1799-1871), botanist, was born on 7 June 1799 in Warrington, the second son of Thomas Wilson (d. 1820), a druggist. After attending a dame-school and receiving private tuition, he was educated at Prestbury grammar school and under Dr Reynolds at the dissenters'academy, Leaf Square, Manchester. Intending to pursue a career in law, he was articled to a firm of solicitors in Manchester, but overwork resulted in headaches and debilitating nervous illness. Outdoor exercise was recommended, in the course of which he acquired his love of botany, thus sharing an interest in natural history with his brother Hamlet.

In 1826 Wilson sent new and rare plants to James Edward Smith and to John Stevens Henslow, hoping to enter into specimen exchanges with the latter. Henslow introduced him to William Jackson Hooker, who was of major importance in encouraging Wilson to devote himself to botany. As a devout Congregationalist, Wilson underwent much soul-searching before deciding on a botanical vocation, which he was enabled to do thanks to a modest allowance from his mother. On several occasions he botanized with Hooker and with Glasgow students in the Scottish highlands. In 1829-30 he traveled in Ireland.

From this time Wilson devoted himself to the study of mosses, soon commanding widespread respect for his observational powers. Hooker relied heavily on Wilson's fieldwork. Wilson corresponded with leading European botanists but equally he sought and respected the collecting skills of working-men botanists in Lancashire and Yorkshire, such as Edward Hobson, John Martin, and John Nowell. Although Wilson disapproved of Sunday botanizing by these men, he firmly believed that 'disparity of circumstances' was no bar to 'intimacy' between botanists, as he explained in a letter to Edward Hobson (Wilson to Hobson, 24 March 1828, Hobson MSS). He helped classify and prepare American mosses collected by Thomas Drummond, to be sold in fascicules, and described mosses collected by Joseph Dalton Hooker when on the Erebus voyage and in India.

In 1846 Wilson agreed to produce a third edition of W. J. Hooker and Thomas Taylor's Muscologia Britannica. This work culminated in his Bryologia Britannica of 1855, so substantially a new work that Hooker argued for Wilson's name alone as author on the title page. Wilson sold sets of moss specimens to accompany his book. He never fulfilled his ambition of bringing out a second edition, which would have included over a hundred new species of mosses, and showed increasing impatience with those who challenged his authority in bryology.

Wilson was extremely neat, fastidious, and highly strung. He was pious, easily upset by Sabbath-breakers, and preferred solitude to society, although he did serve as president of the Warrington Natural History Society. He was a Liberal but not involved in politics. An avid letter-writer, he responded generously to the many requests for information and help that he received. His extensive correspondence was saved from destruction by James Kendrick. Though of modest independent means, at various times after his marriage to his widowed cousin Eliza Lane in 1836 he considered applying for botanical posts, and even emigration, to support his family. He suffered from digestive problems and was prone to bronchitis. He died of the latter complaint at his home, Paddington House near Warrington, on 3 April 1871, and was buried in the nonconformist burial-ground at Hill Cliff near Warrington.

From the guide to the Assorted papers from the Herbarium of William Wilson, 1826-1870, (The Manchester Museum)