Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/94

 party in London. Among his hearers at St. John's were Charles Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg), Bishop Ryder, John Thornton, Zachary Macaulay, the Wilberforces, and Sir James Stephen. In June 1824 Wilson was appointed to the vicarage of St. Mary's, Islington, the living being in the patronage of his family. In 1832, mainly through the influence of Lord Glenelg and his brother, Sir Robert Grant, Wilson was nominated bishop of Calcutta, with a diocese extending over the entire presidency of Bengal, and exercising a quasi-metropolitan jurisdiction over the other sees of Bombay and Madras. He was appointed visitor of Bishop's College, Calcutta, and insured an income of 5,000l. a year. He was consecrated at Lambeth by the archbishop (Howley), assisted by Bishop Blomfield and other prelates, on 29 April 1832. On 16 May he spoke at the East India banquet at the London Tavern, and on 19 June he embarked in the ship James Sibbald, sailing from Portsmouth, and landing at Calcutta on 5 Nov.

India had been thrown open to missionaries through the influence of Wilberforce in 1813, and in the following year [q. v.] had been appointed English bishop of Calcutta. He was succeeded in 1823 by [q. v.], since whose death in 1826 the see had twice been vacated by death. Upon his arrival in Calcutta Wilson found the jurisdiction of the bishop ill defined, the reins of authority much relaxed owing to the frequent vacancies in the see, and the records very deficient. Wilson, however, was a strong and masterful man, and, after a preliminary encounter with the presidency chaplains, he lost no time in showing his determination to establish his authority upon a firm basis. He made a large outlay upon the palace and accessories of state, and was accused of ostentation, as his predecessors Heber and Turner had been blamed for neglect in matters of etiquette. Eventually, by strict habits of business, in which he took delight, and by genuine administrative capacity, Wilson succeeded in establishing his own standard of episcopal propriety. His relations with the governor-general, Lord William Bentinck, were excellent, and, having been once acclimatised at Calcutta, he enjoyed robust health.

The chief events of his episcopate were the seven visitations, in the first of which, in 1834, he visited Malacca and Ceylon, while in the last he met Dalhousie at Rangoon in November 1855, and founded an English church there. On 14 Feb. 1833 he visited the venerable missionary (1761–1834) [q. v.], and received his blessing. In January 1835 the bishop visited the scene of Schwartz's labours at Tanjore, and took the important step of altogether excluding the caste system from the native churches of southern India, in which it had hitherto survived. In March 1839 the idea of building a new cathedral for Calcutta first took possession of his mind. The foundation-stone was laid on 8 Oct. 1839, and henceforth the bishop dedicated a large portion of his income to this object. In 1845, having been attacked by jungle fever, he was ordered to England, and on 19 March 1846 he was introduced by Peel, and had a private audience with the queen, to whom he submitted plans of the cathedral. The queen undertook to present the communion plate. He collected considerable sums for the building, and, after a farewell sermon at Islington on 31 Aug. 1846, he sailed for India the same evening. The cathedral church, St. Paul's, was finally consecrated on 8 Oct. 1847. During his later years the bishop spent much of his time at Serampore, and he was there when the mutiny broke out in the spring of 1857. His last sermon upon ‘Humiliation’ was preached in the cathedral on 24 July 1857, and was printed with a dedication to Lord Canning. He died at Calcutta on 2 Jan. 1858, and an extraordinary gazette requested the principal officers of the government to attend at his interment in the cathedral on 4 Jan. The coffin was borne by twelve sailors of the warship Hotspur, and his remains buried at the east end of the chancel. A memorial was erected in St. Mary's, Islington, while four scholarships and a native pastorate fund were founded at Calcutta in his memory. A ‘Bishop Wilson Memorial Hall’ was inaugurated at Islington in January 1891.

Wilson married, on 23 Nov. 1803, at St. Lawrence Jewry, Ann, the daughter of his uncle, William Wilson; she died at Islington on 10 May 1827. The progress of the courtship was thus recorded in his Latin journal: ‘Ap. 1. Rem patri exposui de uxore. 25. Literas ad patrem dedi. Maii 7. Consensit avunculus. 14. Voluit consobrina mea. 17 Nov. Londinium perveni. 23. Nuptiæ celebratæ felicissimis auspiciis.’ Of a large family two survived him. Of these his eldest son, Daniel, born in November 1805, graduated B.A. from Wadham College, Oxford, on 14 June 1827, and became vicar of Islington, in succession to his father (1832). He became rural dean (1860), and prebendary of St. Paul's (Chiswick) in 1872, and died on 14 July 1886, aged 80.

Both as a parish priest and bishop Wilson was distinguished for independence, resolu-