George Fergusson Wilson

Born at Wandsworth Common on 25 March 1822, he was the sixth son in a family of thirteen children of William Wilson, at one time a merchant in Russia and subsequently founder at Battersea of a candle-making firm, E. Price & Son. His mother was Margaret Nimmo Dickson of Kilbucho and Culture in Scotland. He was educated at Wandsworth, and for a short time worked in a solicitor's office.[1]

Wilson in 1840 entered his father's business. He took interest in the firm's experimental work, and in 1842 patented, with W. C. Jones, a process by which cheap, malodorous fats could be utilised in the place of tallow for candle-making. The original features of the process were the use of sulphuric acid as a decoloriser and deodoriser of strongly-smelling fats, and their subsequent distillation, when acidified, by the aid of super-heated steam. The invention was profitable, and in the Panic of 1847 the business was sold for £250,000.[1]

A new concern, called Price's Patent Candles Ltd., with a capital of £500,000, was then formed, with George Wilson and an elder brother James as managing directors. Both researched processes of manufacture. Wilson in 1853 introduced moulded coco-stearin lights (from coconut oil) as "New Patent Night Lights"; and the two brothers made improvements on a French patent which led to the wide adoption by English manufacturers of the company's "oleine" or "cloth oil".’[2]

In 1854 Wilson made a major discovery, a process of manufacturing pure glycerine, which was first separated from fats and oils at high temperature, and then purified in an atmosphere of steam. Previously, commercial glycerine had been impure.[3]

RHS Wisley today

Wilson retired from his position of managing director in 1863, and in later life lived at Wisley, Surrey, where he devoted himself to experimental gardening on a wide scale.[4] He was particularly successful as a cultivator of lilies. The garden he created at Wisley went to the Royal Horticultural Society, becoming the RHS Garden. [3]

Wilson died at Weybridge Heath on 28 March 1902.[3]

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".[3]

Elected a fellow of the Horticultural Society, he served on some 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 receives the Victoria Medal of Honour in 1897. In 1875, he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society.[3]

Wilson married on 13 August 1862 Ellen, eldest daughter of R. W. Barchard, of East Hill, Wandsworth, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. The elder son was Scott Barchard Wilson.[3]

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Fryer, Sydney Ernest (1912). "Wilson, George Fergusson". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 189–690.

Wilson, George Fergusson (DNB12)