Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/700

 led to the wide adoption by English manufacturers of the company's ‘oleine’ or ‘cloth oil.’ In 1854 George made a discovery of first-class importance, namely a process of manufacturing pure glycerine, the glycerine being first separated from fats and oils at high temperature and then purified in an atmosphere of steam. Previously even glycerine sold at a high price was so impure as to be comparatively useless for most purposes. He retired from the position of managing director in 1863.

In 1845 Wilson was made a member of the Society of Arts. He contributed frequently to its ‘Journal,’ read a paper before it in 1852 on ‘Stearic Candle Manufacture,’ was a member of its council from 1854 to 1859 and again from 1864 to 1867, and its treasurer from 1861 to 1863. In 1854 he read before the Royal Society a paper on ‘The Value of Steam in the Decomposition of Neutral Fatty Bodies,’ and was elected a fellow in 1855. In that year, too, he was elected a fellow of the Chemical Society, and read at the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow a paper on ‘A New Mode of obtaining Pure Glycerine.’

In later life Wilson lived at Wisley, Surrey, where he devoted himself to experimental gardening on a wide scale. The garden formed by him at Wisley now belongs to the Royal Horticultural Society. He was particularly successful as a cultivator of lilies, gaining between 1867 and 1883 twenty-five first-class certificates for species exhibited. Elected a fellow of the Horticultural Society, he served on various of its committees, and was at one time vice-president. At his suggestion the society introduced guinea subscriptions, and in 1876 he published a pamphlet entitled ‘The Royal Horticultural Society: as it is and as it might be.’ He was Victorian Medallist of Horticulture in 1897. In 1875 he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. He died at Weybridge Heath on 28 March 1902.

Wilson married on 13 Aug. 1862 Ellen, eldest daughter of R. W. Barchard, of East Hill, Wandsworth, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Scott Barchard, was author of ‘Aves Hawaiienses: the Birds of the Sandwich Islands,’ a handsomely illustrated work, which was issued in eight parts (large 4to, 1890–9).

 WILSON, HENRY SCHÜTZ (1824–1902), author, born in London on 15 Sept. 1824, was son of Effingham Wilson (1783–1868) by his wife, a daughter of Thomas James of The Brownings, Chigwell, Essex. The father, a native of Kirby Ravensworth, Yorkshire, after serving an apprenticeship to his uncle, Dr. Hutchinson, a medical practitioner of Knaresborough, founded at the Royal Exchange, London, a publishing business chiefly of commercial manuals, which is still continued; a zealous politician of radical views, he died in London in July 1868.

After education at a private school at Highgate, Schütz Wilson was for ten years in a commercial house in London and thoroughly mastered French, German, and Italian. Subsequently assistant secretary of the electric telegraph company, he retired on a pension when the business was taken over by the post office in 1870. He edited the ‘Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers’ from 1872.

Wilson divided his leisure between foreign travel or mountaineering and study or criticism of foreign literature and history. A profound admirer of Goethe's work, he published ‘Count Egmont as depicted in Fancy, Poetry, and History’ in 1863. In later years he wrote frequently in London magazines, and reissued his articles in ‘Studies and Romances’ (1873), ‘Studies in History, Legend, and Literature’ (1884), and ‘History and Criticism’ (1886). He was an early admirer of Edward FitzGerald's long-neglected translations from the Persian, and FitzGerald welcomed Wilson's encouragement (Letters, ed. Aldis Wright, 1859, i. 481).

Wilson, who was a member of the Alpine Club from 1871 to 1898, ascended the Matterhorn on 26–7 Aug. 1875 with Frederic Morshead and A. D. Prickard, and on 15 Aug. 1876 with Morshead. Melchior Anderegg was one of Wilson's guides, and he wrote on ‘Anderegg as a Sculptor’ in the ‘Alpine Journal’ (November 1873). He collected pleasant descriptions of his experiences in ‘Alpine Ascents and Adventures’ (1878).

Interested in both the English and the German stage, he was popular in literary and artistic society. He was a capable fencer and a zealous volunteer, becoming