Career
As a prominent Victorian philanthropist, and a model to many, he promoted many causes, principally educational and theological. Thomas Wilson was an early Director of the London Missionary Society, and in 1837 he became one of the founders of the Metropolitan Chapel Fund Association. Prior to this, he had already built at his own expense, several new Congregational chapels in London and elsewhere.
The most famous being Claremont Chapel in Pentonville (1819) and Craven Chapel in Regent Street, Westminster, (1822).
Paddington Chapel in Westminster was another of Wilson"s foundations, and here the congregation included Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Samuel Dyer. Thomas Wilson"s son and biographer, Joshua Wilson (1795-1874), was instrumental in proposals to form the Congregational Union of England and Wales.
Letters addressed to Thomas Wilson"s wife are preserved at the Congregational Library in London. A memorial to Thomas Wilson stands at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, London, in the Yew Walk.
