John Wilson (historian)

John Wilson (8 June 1799, Kilmarnock, Scotland – 22 January 1870, Brighton, England [Boase, F., "Modern English biography", 6 vols, 1892-1921] ) was the ideological architect of British Israelism.

Wilson commenced studying at great length in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin in 1837. Within a year he was giving a series of lectures which developed an audience. He published his lectures as a book in 1840 with the title "Our Israelitish Origin". There he claimed that the peoples of Israel made their way across the continent of Europe to the British Isles. He brought evidence to bear from works by Diodorus and from Ptolemy, supporting the earlier history of the Israelites. He studied the works of Rawlinson, Herodotus and Josephus and quotes extensively from Sharon Turner.

His lectures attracted the attention of Charles Piazzi Smyth (Astronomer Royal for Scotland and one of the first Pyramidologists) amongst others.

It was in John Wilson's house in St Pancras, London that the "Anglo-Israel Association" was founded in 1874.

On the death of Wilson's daughter in 1804, his MSS passed into the possession of Rev. A. B. Grimaldi. [A. B. G., 'John Wilson MSS', "Notes and Queries" s11-I: 24 (1910), p. 464]

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*worldcat id|lccn-n2004-120167

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