William Wilson, 1875-1965

William Wilson was born on 1 March 1875 at Goody Hills, near the village of Mawbray on the Solway shore in Cumberland, where his father was a farmer. His ancestors on the paternal and maternal sides of the family appear to have been farmers for some generations. His education began in the village school of Holme St Cuthbert where, as he has related, he had a master of outstanding ability, named John Routledge. He has recorded that the books he read at this time directed his interest towards scientific study, and that a book by Nesbit owned by his father on mensuration and land surveying gave him his first taste for geometry. It was, however, evidently his intention to take up a career in agriculture, for after gaining the Longcake scholarship of £40 a year for three years when he was not quite fourteen years of age, he went to the Agricultural College at Aspatria as a weekly boarder. In the college he had his first experience of formal scientific teaching and study, especially in chemistry and surveying together with biology, geology and zoology, and became interested in the application of scientific method and knowledge in agriculture.