Keys appealed (6 Nov. 1728) to the king in council, but nothing came of it.
On the death (1 Feb. 1736) of the tenth lord Derby, the lordship of Man passed to James Murray, second duke of Atholl (d. 1764). The revision of statutes proposed in 1725 was at once carried through, with the result of ‘a marked absence of disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical courts’ (Moore, p. 207). The intricate suit about impropriations (to all of which Atholl had a legal claim) jeopardised for a time the temporalities of the church, and was not finally settled till (7 July 1757) after Wilson's death; but with the aid of Sir Joseph Jekyll [q. v.] Wilson and his son were able to recover (1737) certain deeds securing to the clergy an equivalent for their tithe. Between Wilson and Atholl (and the governors of his appointment) there seems never to have been any personal friction. Under the revised ecclesiastical law presentments for moral offences were less frequent, procedure being less summary. But, while health lasted, Wilson was sedulous in administering the discipline through the spiritual courts, and there was an increase of clerical cases (Moore, p. 207). The extreme difficulty of obtaining suitable candidates for the miserably poor benefices led Wilson to get leave from the archbishop of York to ordain before the canonical age.
Wilson was not by nature an intolerant man, nor were his sympathies limited to the Anglican fold. It is said that Cardinal Fleury (d. 29 Jan. 1743) wrote to him, ‘as they were the two oldest bishops, and, he believed, the poorest in Europe,’ invited him to France, and was so pleased with his reply that he got an order prohibiting French privateers from ravaging the Isle of Man. Roman catholics ‘not unfrequently attended’ his services. He allowed dissenters ‘to sit or stand’ at the communion; not being compelled to kneel, they did so. The quakers ‘loved and respected him’ (Cruttwell, p. xcii). In 1735 he met James Edward Oglethorpe [q. v.] in London, and this was the beginning of his practical interest in foreign missions, though he was an early advocate of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and still earlier of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. His ‘Essay towards an Instruction for the Indians … in … Dialogues,’ 1740, 8vo, was begun at Oglethorpe's instance, and dedicated to the Georgia trustees. Wilson's son was entrusted with its revision for the press, and he submitted the manuscript to Isaac Watts. It must be remembered that most of the Georgia trustees were dissenters. Since 1738 Wilson had been interested in Zinzendorf, through friends who had met him at Oxford and London in 1737. He corresponded (1739) with Henry Cossart, author of a ‘Short Account of the Moravian Churches,’ and received from Zinzendorf and his coadjutors a copy of the Moravian catechism, with a letter (28 July 1740). Zinzendorf was again in London in 1749, holding there a synod (11 to 30 Sept.) News came of the death (23 Sept.) of Cochius of Berlin, ‘artistes’ of the ‘reformed tropus’ (one of three) in the Moravian church. The vacant and somewhat shadowy office was tendered to Wilson (with liberty to employ his son as substitute), Zinzendorf sending him a seal-ring. On 19 Dec. Wilson wrote his acceptance.
From 1750, his eighty-sixth year, Wilson was burdened with gout. He died at Bishop's Court on 7 March 1755, the fiftieth anniversary of his wife's death. His coffin was made from an elm tree planted by himself, and made into planks for that purpose some years before his death (ib. p. xci). He had a strong objection, mentioned in his will, to interments within churches, and was buried (11 March) at the east end of Kirk Michael churchyard, where a square marble monument marks his grave. Philip Moore preached the funeral sermon. His will (21 Dec. 1746; codicil, 1 June 1748) is printed by Keble. His portrait (painted in 1732?) was engraved (1735) by Vertue (reproduced, 1819, by Sievier). It shows his black skull-cap and ‘hair flowing and silvery.’ For his shoes he used ‘leathern thongs instead of buckles’ (Hone, p. 240). On 27 Oct. 1698 he was married at Winwick to Mary (b. 16 July 1674; d. 7 March 1705), daughter of Thomas Patten. By her he had four children, of whom Thomas (see below) survived him.
Wilson's rare unselfishness gives lustre to a life of fearless devotion to duty and wise and thrifty beneficence. The fame of his ecclesiastical discipline is rather due to the singularity of its exercise by an Anglican diocesan than to anything special either in its character or its fruits. The details furnished by Keble, with nauseous particularity from year to year, may be paralleled from the contemporary records of many a presbyterian court or anabaptist meeting. That Wilson acted with the single aim of the moral and religious improvement of his people was recognised by them, and his strictness, joined with his transparent purity, his uniform sweetness of temper, and his self-denying charities, drew to him the affectionate veneration of those to whom he dedicated his life.
