| Administrative History | Robert Wilson was born in Banff on the north eastern coast of Aberdeenshire on 25 April 1787.
He attended Banff Grammar School before continuing his education at Marischal College in Aberdeen where he studied arts from 1802 to 1806. He then attended medical classes in London (1804 - 1805) and Edinburgh (1808) before graduating M.D. at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1815. In 1816, he attended lectures at the Hôtel Dieu and Hôpital St Louis in Paris.
In 1805, he had entered the service of the East India Company and made five return trips to India, serving as a surgeon on board ship. He made a modest fortune from trading on his own account during these voyages and this gave him the money to continue travelling once he retired from his post in 1814.
He spend the next 9 years travelling in Europe and the Near East, possibly with the intention of opening up new trading routes but certainly to indulge his own well-informed classical interests. His journals from this period are well-illustrated with antiquarian sketches, probably not always by Wilson himself. He was the first European to explore Kurdish areas in Mesopotamia. He was proud of his explorations and excavations, often undertaken in Eastern dress, and did contribute to the expansion of trade in the areas he explored, though his agitation for a regular overland route to India was not successful.
In 1824, he became private secretary to the Marquess of Hastings during his time as Governor of Malta.
In 1825, he travelled through Africa, Greece (where he was involved in an exchange of prisoners of war) and Asia Minor. During his travels, he made frequent journeys back to Scotland and associated with many Scots on his travels,
From 1830 until his death, he lived in retirement near Forres in Moray. He travelled for pleasure visiting Norway (1830); Spain and Portugal (1836); Denmark. Russia, Estonia, Finland and Germany (1844) and Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar (1854 - 1856).
He was unmarried but had a natural son, Aylmer St Aubyn Wilson who was born in 1825.
He died at home on 24 September 1871, and in his will made considerable gifts to Marischal College, Aberdeen (and specifically not to King's College, Aberdeen).
The Robert Wilson Trust was created under the terms of his will, to establish an anthropological museum in the buildings at Marischal College, and to administer funds for a scholarship in archaeology at the University of Aberdeen (later, the Wilson Travelling Fellowship). Wilson's library and museum were bequeathed to the University after his death, and the contents of his museum formed the basis of the new Wilson Archaeological Studio (later the Anthropological Museum, now Marischal Museum).
Detailed autobiographical notes are contained in MS 425. See also H. Hargreaves,"Dr Robert Wilson: alumnus and benefactor of Marischal College: the man and his paper", 'Aberdeen University Review', 43 (1970) , 374 - 384. |
| Publication Note | Thelma G. Watt, 'From Banff to Bengal and beyond: the life, travels and writings of a remarkable north-east loon, Robert Wilson, M.D. (1787-1871)', 2 vols (unpublished master's thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1995)
Henry Hargreaves, "Dr Robert Wilson : alumnus and benefactor of Marischal College: the man and his paper ",' Aberdeen University Review' , 43 (1970), 374 - 384
Thelma G. Watt, "Robert Wilson - man of numerous talents", 'Leopard Magazine', Feb. 1998, 18-20 |