Saturday 11 July 2020

Alexander Johnstone Wilson b1841-d1921

AJ Wilson was the father of Uncle Alec, Isabel, Laura, Edwin Clement and Hew Anandale.


He wrote many books on economics, finance and investment and the following is an incomplete list: 'Practical Hints to Investors and Some Words to Speculators' (1897); 'The Business of Insurance (1904); and edited 'Colloquial Slang and Technical Terms in Use on the Stock Exchange and in the Money Market'; 'Reciprocity, Bi-metallism, and Land-tenure Reform'; 'The National Budget: The National Debt, Taxes and Rates'; '
Banking Reform: An Essay on Prominent Banking Dangers and the Remedies they Demand'. He was editor of 'The Investor's Review'; 'Investment Index'; he also wrote an introductory note to 'Labour, Socialism and Strikes' by Yves Guyot (political editor of 'Le Siecle' and former Minister of Public Works in France). As far as I know, the only fiction he wrote was 'The Life of Thomas Wanless'. All in all, he seems to have been a very knowledgeable person regarding finances, economics and banking, and according to family rumours would have been Chancellor, had it not been for his "irregular birth".


AJ was the son of George Washington Wilson (GWW), who has his own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Wilson) and is the subject of a book by Queen guitarist Brian May.  GWW did not marry AJ's mother but they had 2 children together: AJ and Robert. GWW then married someone else and her children went to live in New Zealand, a descendant of whom is Murray Wilson, who I met in 1993. Murray's wife Diane researched the descendants of GWW and she was made QSM in 2016 for services to genealogy and the community (https://gg.govt.nz/images/diane-wilson-auckland-qsm-services-genealogy-and-community).




There's an interesting blog about GWW photographs of South Africa here:
http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/george-washington-wilson-man-company-and-photographers