WILSON, JAMES ARTHUR (1795–1882), physician, son of James Wilson, the surgeon and teacher of anatomy at the Hunterian school in Great Windmill Street, was born in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1795. His mother was a daughter of John Clarke of Wellingborough, and sister to Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke [q. v.] He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster school in 1808, and was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, on 9 May 1812. He graduated B.A. on 6 Dec. 1815, and obtained a first class in both classics and mathematics. On leaving Oxford temporarily, he entered his father's school in Great Windmill Street, and during the winter of 1817 he studied at Edinburgh. He proceeded M.A. at Oxford on 13 May 1818, M.B. on 6 May 1819, and M.D. on 17 May 1823. He was elected a Radcliffe travelling fellow in June 1821, and, having been nominated to a ‘faculty studentship,’ remained a student of Christ Church. In 1819 and 1820 he travelled through France and Switzerland to Italy as physician to George John Spencer, second earl Spencer, and his wife, and in the early part of 1822 he left England for the continent, in compliance with the requirements of his Radcliffe fellowship, and, with occasional intervals, was abroad for the five following years. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 12 April 1824, a fellow on 28 March 1825, and was censor in 1828 and 1851. He delivered the materia medica lectures at the college in 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832, the Lumleian lectures in 1847 and 1848 ‘on Pain,’ and the Harveian oration in 1850; the last-named was one of the most original and noteworthy in matter and style of any that have been delivered within the present century. He was elected physician to St. George's Hospital on 29 May 1829, and held the office until 1857, when he was appointed consulting physician. Wilson died at Holmwood, Surrey, on 29 Dec. 1882.
Wilson was author of: 1. ‘On Spasm, Languor, Palsy, and other Disorders termed Nervous of the Muscular System,’ London, 1843, 12mo. 2. ‘Oratio Harveiana in Ædibus Collegii Regalis Medicorum habita die Junii xxix., mdcccl.,’ London, 1850, 8vo. His contributions to periodical literature were valuable and important. Among them were papers on ‘erysipelas and rheumatic fevers,’ published in the ‘Lancet.’ Under the signature of ‘Maxilla’ he contributed to the ‘London Gazette’ of 1833 a series of characteristic and interesting letters addressed to his friend Vestibulus (Dr. George Hall of Brighton). These letters are memorable in the history of the College of Physicians, for they struck the keynote for its reform.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Roll of Westminster School; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Cat. Brit. Mus. Libr.]
WILSON, JOHN (1595–1674), musician, born at Faversham in Kent on 5 April 1595, was distinguished as a lutenist, and in 1635 succeeded Alphonso Bales as musician to the king. Personal popularity won for his compositions something more than a just appreciation both at the court of Charles I, when Oxford was the stronghold of the royal cause, and among the young men of the university. Wilson's influence in spreading the love of music has been acknowledged as far-reaching. ‘The best at the lute in all England,’ he sometimes played the lute at the music meetings of Oxford, but more often presided over ‘the consort’ (Wood, Life, p. xxiv). In 1644–5 Wilson graduated Mus. Doc. Oxon.; in 1646, on the surrender of the Oxford garrison, he entered the household of Sir William Walter of Sarsden. On the re-establishment in 1656 of the Oxford professorship of music, Wilson was appointed choragus, the lectureship having by this time been diverted from the intention of its founder. In 1661 he resigned this post for that of chamber musician to Charles II, and in 1662 he was appointed gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the place of Henry Lawes.
He lodged at the Horseferry, Westminster, died there—‘aged 78 yeares, 10 months, and 17 dayes’—on 22 Feb. 1673–4, and was buried in the little cloister of Westminster Abbey. He married his second wife, Anne Peniall, on 31 Jan. 1670–1.
Wilson's portrait is among others belonging to the Oxford Music School. An engraving by Caldwall (1644) was published by Hawkins (Hist. 2nd edit. p. 582; cf. Bromley, Cat. Engr. Portr. p. 153).
The theory has been raised by Dr. Rimbault, but has never been seriously accepted, that Dr. John Wilson was identical with Shakespeare's Jack Willson, who sang ‘Sigh no more, ladies,’ and other lyrics. The folio of 1623 gives the stage direction, ‘Enter the Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Willson’ (Much Ado, act ii. sc. 3). That Wilson had frequent intercourse with contemporary composers of Shakespearean lyrics, and himself set to music ‘Take, oh! take those lips away,’ are known facts. That he had a humorous nature and a love of practical joking, such as would better beseem an actor of those days, was commonly reported, and that he was the Willson who, in company with Harry and Will Lawes, raised a tavern
