Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/123

  Christi College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1836, M.A. in 1839, and B.D. in 1847. While still a bachelor scholar he became tutor in 1838, and succeeded to a fellowship on 28 April 1841. In 1846 he was elected to White's professorship of moral philosophy, then a terminable office, re-elected in 1851, and finally re-elected in 1858, after it had been converted into a permanent chair. His lectures given in this capacity, and perhaps still more the stimulating assistance in their private work which he ungrudgingly afforded to his pupils, procured him a considerable reputation in the university as a teacher. In the fifties and sixties many of the best men in Oxford passed under his hands, and he gave a great impetus to the inductive study both of morals and psychology. This office he continued to hold till 1874. Meanwhile, as a leading member of the Hebdomadal Council, to which he was elected soon after its first institution, he had taken a prominent part in the business of the university, for which his shrewd common sense specially fitted him, and, as an ardent university reformer, he was largely instrumental in bringing about the abolition of religious tests and in procuring the issue of the parliamentary commissions of 1854 and 1877. From 1868 to 1872 Wilson held the college living of Byfield, Northamptonshire, in conjunction with his professorship, but this ecclesiastical preferment he resigned on being elected to the presidentship of his college, 8 May 1872. He entered on the duties of this office with much zeal and energy, but, unfortunately, soon after his election to the presidency his health gave way, and during the last few years of his life he was largely incapacitated from taking part in the administration of the college. After a long illness he died on 1 Dec. 1881. He was buried in the Holywell cemetery, Oxford, but is commemorated by a mural tablet in the college cloisters.

Though Wilson was a fluent talker and an impressive lecturer, he was singularly slow in composition, a circumstance due partly to his fastidiousness, and partly to the want of practice in early life. He did not produce any independent book, but was engaged for many years, in conjunction with the writer of the present article, on a work entitled ‘The Principles of Morals,’ the first part of which appeared in the fifth year after his death, 1886, under their joint names, and the second part in 1887 under the name of Dr. Fowler alone. The share taken by Wilson in the first part is indicated in the preface to the second part, and that taken in the second part itself in the advertisement at the beginning of the volume. The two parts were reissued with additions and corrections, in 1894, under the names of Fowler and Wilson.

Wilson was a man of marked personality. Physically he was of strong build and commanding presence. He had a determined will, and possessed great skill in bringing over other people to his own opinions. Though he did not lay claim to any extensive erudition, he was full of intellectual life and interests, a shrewd observer, and an acute thinker, who, to use a favourite phrase of Locke, tried to ‘bottom’ everything. These qualities, combined with a deep sonorous voice, a frank outspokenness, a keen sense of humour, the knack of saying ‘good things,’ and a genial manner, made him highly popular among his friends, and, during the more vigorous period of his life, one of the greatest powers in the university. He was unmarried. Two sisters, who had lived with him for many years before his death, survived him.



WILSON, JOHN MORILLYON (1783–1868), commandant of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, son of John Wilson, rector of Whitchurch, Yorkshire, was born in 1783. He entered the royal navy, and served as a midshipman on the coast of Ireland during the rebellion of 1798, in the expedition to the Helder in 1799, and in the Mediterranean and Egypt in 1801. He received a medal from the captain-pasha of the Turkish fleet off Alexandria in 1801 for having saved the lives of the boat's crew belonging to a Turkish man-of-war. He was thrice wounded during his naval service, the third time so severely in the head that it produced total deafness, in consequence of which he was invalided and quitted the navy in 1803.

After the restoration of his health he entered the army as an ensign in the 1st royals on 1 Sept. 1804. The dates of his further commissions were: lieutenant, 28 Feb. 1805; captain, 1 Jan. 1807; major, 5 July 1814; lieutenant-colonel, 27 Nov. 1815; colonel, 10 Jan. 1837. He served with the third battalion of his regiment at Walcheren in 1809, and was twice wounded at the siege of Flushing. He afterwards served in the peninsular war, was present at the battle of Busaco, the retreat within the lines of Torres Vedras, the actions of Pombal, Redinha, Condeixa, Casal Nova, Foz d'Aronce, and Sabugal, the blockade of Almeida, and the battle of Fuentes d'Onor. 