Gilbert Wilson

Gilbert Wilson (5 March 1899 – 27 July 1986) was a British structural geologist, who was best known for his work on small-scale geological structures. He was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1968.

Early life Wilson was born in Kendal, in the English Lake District, on 5 March 1899. He was the eldest son of civil engineer Norman Foster Wilson (1869–1948) and Henrietta Gwendolen Meryon, née Harris (b. 1876). His younger brothers were Paul Wilson (1908–1980), who was later a mechanical engineer and life peer, and Edward Wilson (1906–1977), who was later a Spanish scholar.

Wilson first went to school in Windermere, where he was the youngest of five boys called 'Wilson', so was known as Wilson 'Quintus'. in France and Germany in 1918 and 1919. After the end of the war, Wilson went to McGill University, Montreal, Canada, to study for a degree in mining engineering and geology. In the McGill yearbook for 1924, Wilson identified his hobbies as "Tea, beer and mountains"; his love of mountains extended to some first ascents in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia. and his interest in structural geology next took him to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States to study for a master's degree in geology. He worked with geologists Charles Leith and W.J. Mead, and learned new skills in identifying the 'way up' of ancient sedimentary rocks. Wilson graduated in 1926, and worked briefly in the mining industries in Canada, Yugoslavia, Russia and Africa, before heading to Imperial College, London, to study for a PhD. He completed his PhD in 1931. As a student, Gilbert became the first president of the Imperial College mountaineering club in 1929, and in 1930 led a group from the club across the Eiger and the Mönch in a day. Wilson's reputation was built on his recognition that the small-scale deformational structures that could be seen in the field in isolated rocky outcrops, would themselves reflect the larger but not directly observable regional structures. Wilson is credited with having brought this idea back from Wisconsin, to Europe.

Family Wilson married Lucile Terroux in 1927, and they had a son, David (1938–2022) and a daughter, Corinne (1935–2010). In 1968, he was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London.

Wilson was made an honorary member of the Geologists' Association in 1975, and was awarded the Andre Dumont medal of the Geological Society of Belgium. Reviewers commented that the book was 'too late ... to get its due recognition', and the poor quality of the photos could have been improved by a 'chimpanzee with a snapshot camera'.

Book

Selected papers