Harold Albert Wilson

Background

Wilson was born in York, the son of a railway clerk. His mother, Anne Gill, was the daughter of a farmer and innkeeper from Topcliffe.

Education

Studied at Saint Olave’s School, New York Yorkshire College, Leeds. Berlin University; Trinity College, Cambridge.

University Scholar, London University, 1896-1898.

1851 Exhibition Scholar, 1897-1900. Allen Scholar, Cambridge University, 1900.

Clerk-Maxwell Student, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, 1901-1904. Master of Arts; Doctor of Science.

Master of Science.

Career

Harold had one sister, Lilian, who would marry Sir Owen West. Richardson. He was awarded his Doctor of Science degree from London in 1900, and was elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1901. From 1901 to 1904, he was a student of James Clerk Maxwell the Cavendish Laboratory.

He became a lecturer in Physics at King"s College London, then professor at the college in 1905.

In 1909 he was a professor at McGill University in Montreal. He joined the Rice Institute in 1912, becoming the first chair of the physics department.

He spent a year at the University of Glasgow in 1924 before becoming a physicist for an oil company in Houston. He retired from Rice University in 1947.

Achievements

• Wilson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Wilson Award at Rice University is named after him.

Membership

Fellow of the Royal Society 1906.

Connections

colleague:

J. J. Thomson