WILSON, William Heath

1849 - 1927

William Richard Ferguson Wilson was born in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland in 1849, son of Charles Heath Wilson (September 1809-3 July 1882), an artist, and his second wife Johanna Catherine (1809-1887), eldest daughter of the late William John Thomson, portrait-painter, who married at 37 Inverleith Row, Edinburgh on 16 August 1848, Charles's first wife was Louisa Balfour Orr (1811-14 March 1847), daughter of Surgeon John Orr, who married at Edinburgh on 3 October 1838 and by whom he had a son and two daughters. William was an elder brother to Annie Heath Wilson. In 1851 William was living at 111 Douglas Street, Barony, Blythswood, Lanarkshire with his parents 42-year-old Charles Heath Wilson, headmaster of government school of design, and his 41-year-old wife, and three step siblings, Mary Ann 11, Elizabeth Agnes 8 and Charles Andrew 7 and they retained a governess and four indoor servants. William was educated at Glasgow Academy and studied under his father, who was headmaster of Glasgow School of Art 1849-1864. In 1869, his father Charles Wilson and his family left Scotland and settled at Florence, where he was involved with a large literary and artistic circle and Charles Heath Wilson died at Florence on 3 July 1882. Young William was a landscape and genre painter who exhibited under the name of William Heath Wilson, at the Royal Academy 1884-1899 from Florence and various London addresses also exhibiting at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; Fine Art Society; Grosvenor Gallery; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery Manchester City Art Gallery; and the New English Art Club; the Royal Society of British Artists; the Royal Institute of Oil Painters from Florence in 1880, London in 1885, Betchworth, Surrey in 1896 and Wenhaston, Suffolk in 1908. In 1911, an unmarried 61-year-old 'on own means', living at Sunnyside, Wenhaston, Suffolk with his 59-year-old unmarried sister Annie Heath Wilson, and was still there in 1921 being listed as 'artist'. William Richard Ferguson Wilson died at Wenhaston, Suffolk on 12 December 1927.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 1 Via Santa Reparata, Florence, Italy
1884 796 Sunrise from the shore of Carrara
         1660 'I dare not'
1885 616 Autumn Morning: Carrara
from 1a Berkeley Garden, Campden Hill, West London
1887 217 In Maremma
         341 Evening: Coast of Carrara
1888 926 In Maremma
from 8 Wharfdale Street, Redcliffe Square, Southwest London
1889 1167 Ruins of Segesta, Sicily
from 17 Mount Carmel Chambers, Kensington
1892 384 Blighburgh
1893 755 Autumn, Blythburgh
1895 383 On the Riviera
from Brockham Green, Betchworth, Surrey
1896 744 Yew Trees, Boxhill
1898 88 Head of Loch Long
         850 A Surrey Orchard
1899 853 Winter Evening: Boxhill

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Works by This Artist