1749 with a thesis, ‘De Luce,’ Edinburgh, 1749, 4to. He was licensed to practise by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on 7 Aug. 1764, and was admitted a fellow on 6 Nov. of the same year. He exercised his profession at Newcastle and afterwards in London, where he was appointed physician to the medical asylum before 1777. Wilson was a man of some mental power, and a decided Hutchinsonian in his views. Besides medical treatises he published anonymously several philosophical works. He died in London on 4 June 1792.
He was the author of: 1. ‘The Creation the Groundwork of Revelation, and Revelation the Language of Nature, or a Brief Attempt to demonstrate that the Hebrew Language is founded upon Natural Ideas, and that the Hebrew Writings transfer them to Spiritual Objects,’ Edinburgh, 1750, 8vo. 2. ‘Human Nature surveyed by Philosophy and Revelation,’ London, 1758, 8vo. 3. ‘An Essay on the Autumnal Dysentery,’ London, 1761, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1777. 4. ‘Short Observations on the Principles and Moving Powers assumed by the present System of Philosophy,’ 1764, 8vo. 5. ‘An Explication and Vindication of the First Section of the “Short Observations,”’ London, 1764, 8vo. 6. ‘Short Remarks upon Autumnal Disorders of the Bowels,’ Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1765, 8vo. 7. ‘Reflections upon some of the Subjects in Dispute between the Author of the “Divine Legation” and a late Professor in the University of Oxford,’ London, 1766, 8vo. 8. ‘On the Moving Powers in the Circulation of the Blood,’ 1774, 8vo. There is an Italian translation of this treatise in Carlo Amoretti and Francesco Soave's ‘Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulli arti,’ ii. 255–72 (Milan, 1779, 4to). 9. ‘Medical Researches, being an Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Hysterics in the Female Constitution,’ London, 1777, 8vo. 10. ‘Aphorisms on the Constitution and Diseases of Children,’ London, 1783, 12mo. 11. ‘Bath Waters: a conjectural Idea of their Nature and Qualities, in three Letters. To which is added Putridity and Infection unjustly imputed to Fevers,’ 1788, 8vo.
[Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ, I. ii. 557; Scots Maga, 1792 p. 310; Reuss's Reg. of Living Authors, 1770–90; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Orme's Biblioth. Biblica, 1824; Edinb. Medical Graduates, 1705–1866, p. 4; Hist. Sketch and Laws of the Royal Coll. of Phys. of Edinb. 1882, p. 4.]
WILSON, ANDREW (1780–1848), landscape-painter, born in Edinburgh in 1780, came of an old family who had suffered in the Jacobite cause. His father's name was Archibald Wilson, his mother's Elizabeth Shields. When quite young he commenced to study art under Alexander Nasmyth [q. v.], and then, at the age of seventeen, went to London, where he worked for some time in the schools of the Royal Academy. Proceeding to Italy, he studied the great works of the Italian masters, thus laying the foundation of a knowledge which afterwards proved of great use, and he became acquainted with the well-known collectors Champernown and Irving. He also made many sketches, principally of the architecture in the neighbourhood of Rome and Naples. Returning to London in 1803, he at once saw the advantage of importing pictures by the old masters, and went back to Italy for that purpose. The troubled state of Europe made travelling difficult, but he reached Genoa, where he settled under the protection of the American consul and was elected a member of the Ligurian Academy. As a member of that society he was present when Napoleon Bonaparte visited its exhibition, and on some envious academician informing the latter, who had paused to admire Wilson's picture, that it was by an Englishman, he was met by the retort: ‘Le talent n'a pas de pays.’ In 1805 he returned through Germany to London with the pictures (over fifty in number) which he had acquired. Among them were Rubens's ‘Brazen Serpent’ (now in the National Gallery) and Bassano's ‘Adoration of the Magi’ (in the Edinburgh Gallery).
Settling in London, he painted a good deal in watercolour, was one of the original members of the Associated Artists (1808), and held for a period the position of teacher of drawing in Sandhurst Military College; but being in 1818 appointed master of the Trustees' Academy, he removed to Edinburgh, where he exercised a considerable and beneficial influence upon his pupils, among whom were Robert Scott Lauder [q. v.], William Simson [q. v.], and David Octavius Hill [q. v.] While in London he contributed to the Royal Academy, and in Edinburgh he supported the Royal Institution, of which he was the manager as well as an artist associate member. But his predilection for Italy was too strong to be resisted, and in 1826, taking his wife and family with him, he again went south, and for the twenty years following lived in Rome, Florence, and Genoa. During this period he was much consulted on art matters, collected pictures for Lords Hopetoun and Pembroke, Sir Robert Peel, and others, and was instrumental in securing for the Royal Institution some of the most important works, which later helped to form the
