Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Wilson, John Dove
WILSON, JOHN DOVE (1833–1908), Scottish legal writer, born at Linton, Roxburghshire, on 21 July 1833, was son of Charles Wilson, M.D., of Kelso (afterwards of Edinburgh). Educated at the grammar school, Kelso, and Edinburgh University, he studied law at Edinburgh, and spent a session at Berlin University. Called to the Scottish bar in 1857, he in 1861, through the influence of George (afterwards Lord) Young, was appointed sheriff-substitute of Kincardineshire, taking up his residence at Stonehaven. In 1870 he was transferred to Aberdeen as colleague to Sheriff Comrie Thomson. This position he held with distinction for twenty years, establishing his reputation as an able lawyer and a conscientious judge.
Wilson, who wrote much in legal periodicals, had a profound knowledge of jurisprudence, and was an enthusiastic advocate of legal reform, especially in the matter of codification and the simplification of procedure. In 1865 he issued a new annotated edition of Robert Thomson's ‘Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange’ (1865). The work soon acquired standard rank. A ‘Handbook of Practice in Civil Causes in the Sheriff Courts of Scotland’ (Edinburgh, 1869; 2nd edit. 1883) constituted him the chief authority on sheriff court practice. On his handbook was based ‘The Practice of the Sheriff Courts of Scotland in Civil Causes’ (1875; 4th edit. 1891), which was characterised as ‘one of the most accurate books in existence,’ and remained the chief authority until superseded by later legislation in 1907, as well as ‘The Law of Process under the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act, 1876, with Notes on Proposed Extensions of Jurisdiction’ (Edinburgh, 1876). Some of the reforms proposed by Wilson were realised at a later date.
Wilson gave evidence before parliamentary committees on bills of sale and civil imprisonment, and aided various lord-advocates in the drafting of bills, particularly the Sheriff Court Act of 1876 and the Bills of Exchange Act of 1882, He took a prominent part in the movement for the codification of commercial law which began in April 1884 (see his address to the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce in Journal of Jurisprudence, July 1884). A report by him of the proceedings of the congress on commercial law at Antwerp in 1885, where he represented the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, was translated into Italian. In 1884 Wilson received the degree of LL.D. from Aberdeen University.
On resigning his office as sheriff-substitute in Feb. 1890 Wilson was from the autumn of 1891 to 1901 professor of law at Aberdeen. After studying Roman law for a season at Leipzig he revived the study at Aberdeen. He induced the university to institute the B.L. degree; and he helped to found a lectureship on conveyancing, and to form a law library. In 1895–6 he served as Storr's lecturer on municipal law at Yale University, Newhaven, U.S.A., and published one of his lectures there, ‘On the Reception of Roman Law in Scotland.’
Wilson had a wide acquaintance with French, German, and Italian, and published some graceful verse translations. He was active in philanthropic work at Aberdeen, was president of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, and became D.L. of Aberdeenshire in 1886. Wilson died at San Remo on 24 Jan. 1908, and was buried at Allenvale cemetery, Aberdeen. An enlarged photograph is in the Advocates' Library, Aberdeen.
In 1863 Wilson married Anna (d. 1901), daughter of John Carnegie of Redhall, and left two sons and one daughter.
[Aberdeen Journal, 25 Jan. 1908; Scotsman, same date; Scottish Law Review and Sheriff Court Reporter, xxiv. 44 (1908); private information.]