Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Wilson, William Edward
WILSON, WILLIAM EDWARD (1851–1908), astronomer and physicist, born at Belfast on 19 July 1851, was only son of John Wilson, of Daramona, Streete, co. Westmeath, by his wife Frances Patience, daughter of the Rev. Edward Nangle. He was educated privately, and showed great interest in astronomy while still a boy. In 1870 he joined the British party under Huggins which went to Oran in Algeria to observe the total eclipse of the sun in that year, and on his return he set up a private observatory on his father's estate at Daramona, equipped with a twelve-inch refractor by Grubb. In 1881 he built a new observatory with a twenty-four inch silver on glass reflector, also by Grubb, and soon after added a physical laboratory. Thus equipped, he began in 1886 the investigations on the temperature of the sun and the radiation from sunspots, which were remarkable pioneer work. In 1894 he published, with Philip Leman Gray, his ‘Experimental Investigation on the Effective Temperature of the Sun’ (Phil. Trans. 185A, p. 361), in which he arrived at the result 6590° C. This, with other important papers, published in the Phil. Trans. and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a selection of his admirable celestial photographs were collected in a volume, ‘Astronomical and Physical Researches made at Mr. Wilson's Observatory, Daramona, Westmeath,’ printed privately in 1900. Subsequent work included an examination of the effect of pressure on radio-activity, and an expedition to Plasencia to observe the solar eclipse of 1900. He was elected F.R.S. in 1896, and was made hon. D.S. of Dublin University in 1901.
Wilson, who mainly lived on his estate, was high sheriff of co. Westmeath in 1901.
He died at Daramona on 6 March 1908, and was buried in the family burying ground attached to the parish church of Streete, the village adjoining his demesne. There is a portrait in oils at Daramona, painted in 1886 by E. Marshall.
He married on 10 Nov. 1886, Caroline Ada, third daughter of Captain R. C. Granville of Grand Pré, Biarritz, and left one son, John Granville, and two daughters.
[Royal Soc. Proc., 83 A., 1910; Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., lxix. Feb. 1909.]