Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The remarkable C.S.I., C.M.G., Great War D.S.O. group of sixteen awarded to Pilot Officer Sir Arnold Wilson, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, late Lieutenant-Colonel, Indian Army, who was killed in action as an Air Gunner in a Wellington of No. 37 Squadron in May 1940, aged 56 years: known affectionately to his fellow aircrew as “Sir Gunner”, in light of his additional entitlement to the K.C.I.E., he had first come to public notice for his daring exploration of unknown districts in S.W. Persia in 1911-12, but gained wider fame as a civil administrator and political officer in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, as a critic of Lawrence of Arabia, and as a Tory M.P. in the 1930s, when, as an outspoken supporter of appeasement, he met Hitler and Mussolini - to the medal fraternity at large Sir Arnold will be best remembered as co-author of definitive reference work, Gallantry

The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, C.S.I., Companion’s neck badge, gold, silver and enamel, with cameo centre, surrounding motto embellished with rose diamonds; The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s breast badge, converted to neck wear, silver-gilt and enamels, with later split-ring attached to the integral loop suspension; Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; The Most Venerable Order of St. John, Knight of Grace’s set of insignia, comprising neck badge and breast star, silver and enamel; 1914-15 Star (Capt., Political I.A.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. Sir); General Service 1918-62, 2 clasps, Kurdistan, Iraq (Bt. Lt. Col. Sir, I.A.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals; Delhi Durbar 1911; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937, the first lacking usual suspension loop, generally good very fine (16) £6000-8000

C.S.I. London Gazette 3 June 1919.

C.M.G. London Gazette 14 June 1912.

D.S.O. London Gazette 17 April 1916.

Knight of Grace, Order of St. John London Gazette 5 December 1919.

Arnold Talbot Wilson was born in July 1884, the son of a distinguished clergyman, James Maurice Wilson, and was educated at Clifton College - where his father was onetime headmaster - and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he won the King’s Medal and the Sword of Honour in 1902. Originally commissioned into the Wiltshire Regiment, he transferred to the 32nd Sikh Pioneers in 1904 and thence to the Indian Political Department in 1909, for he was undoubtedly ambitious.

Described at this moment in time by his biographer, John Marlowe, as ‘brash, self-confident, egotistical and clean living’, and blessed with a maginificent physique, he was equally prominent for his acute intelligence, his swift qualification in the “Higher Standard” of fluency in Urdu, Punjabi, Putshu and Persian being a case in point. Employed in south-west Persia until 1913, initially as Consul at Mohammerah and thence as Second Assistant at Bushire, Wilson’s ambition drove him to greater things, not least his daring exploration of the unknown districts of Luristan and Fars, both unsettled regions that were occupied by turbulent tribes - keeping a low profile by means of travelling without escort and in Persian dress, he was nonetheless thrice attacked and twice held prisoner, and but for his tact and obvious courage may well have met an early demise.

In the event, his work was recognised by his appointment to C.M.G. and the award of the MacGregor Memorial Medal of the United Services of India - no mean feat for a young man of 28 years in the Edwardian era. In the following year, on the formation of a Boundary Commission to settle a dispute between Persia and Turkey, Wilson was appointed the Deputy British Commissioner, gaining advancement to Commissioner in 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities, following which he returned to the U.K. via Archangel - his fascinating work and travels for the period 1907-1914 are described in his book South-West Persia.

The Great War and the Lawrence of Arabia Connection

Appointed Deputy Chief Political Officer to General Gorringe in the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ in Mesopotamia in 1915, Wilson did about everything but political work, passing most of his time employed on dangerous military reconnaissances, night in and night out, and sometimes under fire, an example being his recce. of the Turkish positions on the canal at Nasiriya, when he was shot at by a sentry. Of this close encounter, he wrote on 1 August 1915:

‘I was out almost every night and practically all night, reconnoitring and scouting, sometimes on one flank, sometimes on another, generally alone, sometimes with another officer. Risky work, more risky than the G.O.C. knows, although he was glad enough to get the information. My last bit of work was as follows; I had to crawl on my stomach from our lines 1000 yards to point X to ascertain the depth of the water, the breadth of the canal, etc. I got as far as X moving very slowly as it was bright moonlight and I preferred to take the risk of being seen and shot by moonlight to the difficulty of going with unseeing eyes in the dark ... Waited at X for nearly an hour listening to and watching the Turks in their trenches. At last got up and began to get into the water to test the depth. Up jumped a sentry 50 yards away and fired at me, so I fled. He fired six shots but all missed .... So I failed in my task, but I had estimated the breadth pretty carefully ... I had on the previous night successfully reached point Z by wading up the canal very sowly from the other end. I was able to deduce that, as the canal was 70 feet broad and 4 feet deep at Z and approximately 80 feet broad at X it was unlikely to be deeper at X.’

On departing Gorringe’s staff, Wilson was told by the General that his work had been twice brought to his notice for gallant conduct in the Field and that he hoped that suitable recognition might follow. The General’s Chief of Staff was equally impressed, telling Wilson, ‘You are damned lucky to have survived; a good many of us were expecting each evening to be your last’. He was duly gazetted for the D.S.O.

On the formation of a civil administration for the occupied regions in 1916, Wilson was appointed Deputy Civil Commissioner at Basra, and later at Baghdad, in which capacity he served until March 1918, work that was rewarded by a C.I.E. and the Brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel. It was during this period, in April 1916, in fact, that Lawrence of Arabia visited Mesopotamia proper in connection with a scheme for bribing the Turkish Army Commander to raise the siege of Kut, and although the two men did not meet on this occasion, it was the beginning of a stormy relationship, especially after their first confrontation at the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919, following which Wilson wrote, ‘He seems to me to have done immense harm and our difficulties with the French in Syria seem to me to be mainly due to his actions and advice,’ and this so soon after Wilson’s successful dismissal of Lawrence’s proposed settlement of the “Arab Question” by memoranda back in November 1918. This was unfortunate, for as Major Sir Hubert Young, C.M.G., D.S.O., who was known to them both, concluded in his work Independent Arab:

‘The position was, in fact, that while Colonel Wilson was fighting for the unity of Iraq at the expense of Arab independence, Feisal and Lawrence were fighting for Arab independence at the expense of Syria. Wilson failed to realise the necessity for keeping faith with the Arabs as much as Lawrence under-estimated the necessity for keeping faith with the French. If only they had been working together, instead of against each other, the result might well have been that Syria and Iraq would have developed side by side along exactly the same lines, and entered the League of Nations hand-in-hand.’


Instead, as Wilson’s biographer John Marlowe states: ‘The two men became, personally as well as politically, violently antagonistic.’ And that antagonism was rarely better evident than in Wilson’s scathing review of Lawrence’s Revolt in the Desert for the Central Asian Journal - the Arab Bureau ‘helped induce [Britain] to adopt a policy which brought disaster to the people of Syria, disillusionment to the Arabs of Palestine and ruin to the Hejaz.’

Another character to meet with Wilson’s disapproval while stationed at Basra - but only after she started to meddle in politics - was the well-known traveller and writer, Gertrude Bell, who became his subordinate - the feeling was mutual, Bell describing her senior as ‘overbearing, reactionary and personally rude’; yet another was the father of Soviet spy “Kim” Philby, who was eventually dismissed for his open opposition to the proposal of Feisal for the kingship of Iraq.

Civil Commissioner and Insurrection

As stated, it was in March 1918 that Wilson ended his appointment at Baghdad, and he was next appointed Acting Civil Commissioner and Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, where he established an efficient administration within the short period of three years, no doubt assisted by his then innovative preference for travelling a great deal by aeroplane. It was, of course, during this period that he was directly involved in the Kurdistan and Iraq operations. A glimpse of Wilson at work as Acting Civil Commissioner is to be found in H. E. Bowman’s Middle East Window:

‘Tall, erect and broad-shouldered, his hair cut close to a high forehead, his eyes dark and penetrating, his speech vivid and allusive, he was a dominant figure, physically and mentally, in any company ... No extremes of climate appeared to affect him. He wore no topee in the hottest sun, no overcoat in mid-winter. His powers of endurance were extraordinary; he could outride or outwalk without fatigue any companion, however inured to hardship ... To those of us who served under him in Iraq he was an inspiring Chief. An indefatigable worker himself, he expected everyone else to work as hard as he did; and although none of us succeeded in doing this, we kept out noses pretty close to the official grindstone. His memory was phenomenal, his knowledge of literature profound, his dispatches contained quotations from Bacon, Shakespeare, and Milton as well as the Greek and Latin classics ... By the members of the civil administration he was trusted and liked. Having laid down the broad principles upon which he wished us to act, he never interfered in departmental detail. If we wanted his advice he was ever ready to listen, ever ready to help ... Wilson’s energy was amazing. After a long and exhausting day in the office (where the temperature for months on end was 100 degrees) and a brief spell of sleep, he would go off on tour before dawn, visit half a dozen places by aeroplane, hold numerous local conferences, and be back before sunset to dictate at speed a long and intricate telegram to the India Office.’

Rewarded with the C.S.I. in 1919, and advanced to K.C.I.E. in 1920, aged just 37, his career in government service came to a sudden halt in May of the latter year when the peace of the region was widely disturbed by insurrection, an episode which he faced with characteristic courage and determination, and the causes for which were complex and largely outside his control. But the fact is the home press saw otherwise, and the likes of Lawrence of Arabia were quick to state the cause of the insurrection was British oppression (i.e. Wilson’s administration). For his own part, Wilson answered his critics in detail in his Mesopotamia 1917-20, A Clash of Loyalties, published in 1931.

Having resigned in response to this criticism, Wilson joined the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as a resident director in 1921, and remained so employed until 1926, when he returned to England, but he continued in the service of the company until 1932, the year in which he decided to enter the political arena.

Tory M.P. and “Walks & Talks Abroad”

Elected M.P. for the Hitchin Division of Hertfordshire as a National Conservative in June 1933, he was returned at the General Election of 1935:

‘He soon gained a distinctive place in politics by his independent attitude and the extent of his interests and sympathies, and he served as chairman of a number of committees. He was not a party man, and he did not hesitate to advocate policies which were unpopular and exposed him to unfriendly criticism. From 1933 onwards he pressed for rearmament and for compulsory military service. In 1935 he opposed the imposition of sanctions against Italy. Believing that neither the German nor the Italian peoples wanted war, he advocated, even after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, that further attempts should be made to bring about an agreed settlement: but he insisted that it must be made clear to the German and Italian authorities that the British nation would fight, if the negotiations failed’ (E. Bonham-Carter’s summary, Dictionary of National Biography, refers).

By way of researching his views on such contentious issues, Wilson travelled extensively in Italy, Germany and Spain in the mid-1930s, meeting, among others, Hitler, Hess and Mussolini - their conversations are recorded in his book Walks & Talks Abroad, one of four similar publications by him to appear in this period. Bonham-Carter argues that Wilson was ‘favourably impressed by some aspects of Nazi and Fascist policies, but ... he was no believer in Nazism or Fascism as a policy for this country’, and, by and large, such a contention is supported by the text of Walks & Talks Abroad. Of his meeting with Hitler in Berlin in May 1934, Wilson wrote:

‘I was received by Herr Hitler at his office, a fine but unpretentious modern building close to the official residence of the President. There was no military display within or without the portals: a couple of S.S. sentries at the door and two more on the first floor was the only external indication that the building housed the ruler of new Germany. The interview had been fixed for one o’clock, and, accompanied by my host, Herr von Ribbentrop, I was ushered into the great room, bare of furniture except for a large table near a window at the far end, at which sat the Chancellor, and a smaller one surrounded by chairs nearer the door, round which we sat for fully three-quarters of an hour.

Herr Hitler left on my mind an indelible impression of single-mindedness, with great reserves of strength. He spoke with vigour and vivacity in German so clear and terse that the services of an interpreter were scarcely needed. He sat quite still as he spoke, using one hand to emphasize some particular point, and began the conversation by asking me what impression I had formed during the week that I had spent in Germany. I spoke with admiration of the Public Works Service Camps: he at once asked me how many and which camps I had seen, and on what precise grounds I approved them. I replied at some length, comparing them with out Ministry of Labour Training Centres, to the advantage of the latter ... I mentioned my visit to the Tiegel Jail, and the S.A. Troop in the field, and a Hitler Youth Troop, workmen’s tenements and individual houses in allotment gardens on the outskirts, the Deutches Volk Exhibition, and two great hospitals, as well as a technical school and two great industrial plants at Dusseldorf, and the Police Sports at Hamburg. He cross-examined me on each successive item, declaring in conclusion that I had seen more in a week than some Germans saw in a year, and commending my choice of subjects. On the table before him was a newspaper cutting containing an abstract of my address in Berlin two days earlier. He read it again and pointed [in agreement] to the concluding paragraph ... Did I appreciate - did we understand in England - how essential for Germany was unity, even at the cost, for a time, of ancient liberties? Did we realize - as I had spent so much time at the Deutches Volk Exhibition he knew I understood - the significance of his racial policy? Every man should be proud of his own race and nation, and was doubly fortunate when, as in Germany, the two were co-existent. Did I understand how profoundly the German nation was devoted to peace? Another war would destroy the white races, and be the ruin of a racial policy ... The manner of his speech was to me of greater interest than what he was saying, which was but an echo of his many speeches which, broadcast and distributed in print through a thousand channels, are quoted almost textually by every young man and woman. For such a creed men of every age have lived, as well as died.’

The day before Wilson had met Rudolf Hess - ‘a fine-looking man of forty-five years or so, broad and tall, with pleasant eyes and a deep, clear voice. He had risked all in the years before the revolution and suffered much’ - and the day following General Blomberg - ‘a tall, dignified man of sixty or so, in undress uniform ... We spoke not of war but of peace.’ Yet for all the informality and apparent friendliness, Wilson was soon to see the other side of the coin at Dachau, which he visited later in this trip, an establishment which was possessed of an atmosphere ‘against which my soul revolted ... This aspect of Hitler’s regime is doubtless a necessary concomitant of revolution, but utterly repellent to the English mind.’

Back home, where his books and articles regularly encouraged fierce debate - but attracted equally fierce criticism - he was a familiar figure in the House of Commons, where he was often to be found in the library, ‘a pile of proof-sheets in front of him on the table, pen in one hand, a cigarette in the other, annotating, correcting, yet ever ready to take part in any discussion or conversation that might be going on around him’. In the period 1936-38 he served as Chairman of a Home Office Committee on Air Raid Precautions, in addition to delivering three treatises on Burial Reform, Workmen’s Compensation and Industrial Assusrance, and completed his draft for Gallantry, which was published in 1939 - ‘although he generously allowed another’s name to appear as part author, [the work] was largely done by himself.’

Wilson, a self-confessed ‘left wing radical Tory’, remained a steady advocate for appeasement right up until the eve of war, his last speech to the House before the onset of hostilities, on 31 July 1939, leaving no doubt as to his preferred plan of action:

“If Germany has not the courage to approach us, we, as the older, the senior, and the wiser Power, must again take the initiative. Because we failed once it does not follow that we may not succeed a second time. It is difficult - and no one realizes it more than I - to speak of appeasement or to make suggestions for further negotiations. If these proposals were to be rejected I would fight myself, and I would urge others to fight to the utmost limit. I am no pacifist ... But the situation is such that we ought to be prepared to take the risk of approaching Germany once more, and to make specific suggestions on the clear understanding that the alternative to agreement to confer is, in the long run, war.”

The next time members of the House saw Sir Arnold, he was wearing the uniform of a Pilot Officer in the R.A.F.V.R.

Pilot Officer “Sir Gunner”

It was characteristic of Wilson that on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939 he volunteered for active service in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. But as J. H. F. McEwen observes in Wilson’s entry in the popular wartime title, Went The Day Well, the path to active service for a knighted 55 year-old M.P. (and retired half-colonel and colonial administrator) was ‘by no means an easy one’. He continues:

‘In the first place he was, though of robust physique, scarcely up to the standard of training of the boys, nearly forty years his junior, among whom he now found himself. So it was necessary by means of rigorous dieting to reduce his weight in order that he might the more easily fit his burly frame into any of the fighting turrets of a heavy bomber. Then, too, there was the question of his position in relation to that of his companion in arms. As a knight and an ex-Lieutenant-Colonel with rows of medal ribbons he coud scarcely hope to be treated on equal terms by the gay, gallant, but very youthful company to whose complete confidence and friendship he aspired. To begin with, therefore, he tried modestly to pass himself off as plain “Mr. Wilson”, but it was not long before the perfect solution was found. Very soon he came to be known to all simply as “Sir Gunner”. And it was as “Sir Gunner” that he was known affectionately to the end.’

Wilson commenced training as an Air Gunner at R.A.F. Manby in Lincolnshire, moved to the Central Gunnery School at Warmwell in Dorset, and next attended a conversion course for Wellington bombers at Harwell in Berkshire. Then in March 1940, and by now commissioned as a Pilot Officer, R.A.F.V.R., he was posted to No. 37 Squadron at Feltwell, ready to take up his crusade with ‘I Maccabees iii 59 in my heart’ (‘For it is better for us to die in battle than to see the evils of our nation and of the Holy Place’ - letter to a friend refers): he quickly won the respect of his fellow aircrew, his C.O. describing him as a ‘man of outstanding personality and an inspiration to the squadron.’

At this early stage of the War, No. 37’s operational agenda largely comprised North Sea sweeps by day, and pamphlet drops over N.W. Germany by night, and “Sir Gunner” played his part to the full in all of them, turning down an offer of less operational outings when he was appointed the unit’s Gunnery Leader. And, whenever his service duties permitted, he continued to visit the House of Commons, frequently bringing with him a member of aircrew. His last speech to the House, on 7 May 1940, late on the first day of the historic debate that would lead to the downfall of the Chamberlain Government - and shortly before his death in action - made a profound impact on the members who heard it. It was a determined rallying-call to move on from the set-backs recently experienced in Norway and to take-up the motto of the House, Numini et patriae adsto - “I stand by God and my country” - and commenced in fine style:

‘I count myself fortunate in having an opportunity to speak, for within an hour I must rejoin my unit. The war is so close to our shores today that an airman can dine with his wife, proceed overseas over the North Sea to set fire to a hornets’ nest, extinguish it with a pitch of high explosive, and be back having breakfast, if he is fortunate, with his wife at the usual hour on the following morning ... ’

On the night of 10-11 May, Wilson flew on a bombing raid to Rotterdam, an experience about which he later wrote:

‘We came over the target at the precise moment laid down in our orders, just as the young moon was setting. Gray [the Sergeant-Pilot who was to be shot down with Wilson on the night of 31 May and who later died of wounds as a P.O.W.] was in no hurry. The hangar and buildings in the N.W. corner were blazing so brightly that it was hard at first to find out precisely where we were. Light clouds below us almost obscured the view. So he descended to 1,500 feet and nosed round for 20 minutes as far west as Dortrecht until he had satisfied himself beyond doubt we were over the aerodrome. As we arrived, a flare was dropped by another machine bent on a like errand. It fell off the aerodrome but showed clearly how the land lay. Gray sheered off and gained height before descending at 280 m.p.h. upon his chosen line. His first bomb, as observed by me, was just off, his second well within the aerodrome. Again he steered away and made a second run in a different direction. This time he dropped seven in quick succession. I saw flame which lit up a great troop-carrying aeroplane; it heeled over and a second later burst into flames which showed five smaller machines close by that must have been seriously damaged. I fired a few bursts from my machine-gun, hoping that they would pierce the hides of German sentries, but was chary of “hosepiping” lest any victims should be Dutch troops whom we knew to be close by. Gray made one more turn, climbing to 4,000 feet and descending rapidly to 2,000 feet before releasing his last 250 lb. bombs. The heavy thud of each bomb shook the aeroplane slightly as if someone was hammering us with a gigantic wooden mallet. Then I heard the words, “Door closed”, “Power off”. We had done our job; we had dropped our stuff.’

And so too of an outing to the Ruhr on the night of 14-15 May, when an alternative target had to be found due to poor visibility:

‘ ... Again and again during the next half hour the searchlights got us ... a burst of ack-ack in front of us showed we were observed. We emerged from the clouds at 8,000 feet and were dazzled by a score or more of searchlights. At last Gray saw a bridge across the Meuse. We were at 4,000 feet. He dived to 1,000 feet, hoping to release a stickful over it. The bomb aimers were ready, the sights adjusted, but again the searchlights foiled us. They got us and held us for two minutes ... Nothing was left but to find a good Autostrade. This we succeeded in hitting half a dozen times or more in succession at less than 1,000 feet. The machine rocked as the bombs found their mark. Then up and home, but not before we got a red stream of tracer within 20 or 30 feet - as it seemed - of my rear turret, showing that a machine-gun battery was trained upon us. I gave them 500 rounds from each of my guns, and they stopped, whether because we were out of range or because of my firing I know not ... ’

That same morning Churchill, the new Prime Minister, had visited Feltwell, and had told Wilson, “You and I have not always agreed, but today we are comrades.” Whether Wilson told him he was working on an article entitled Thoughts in War we know not, and in the event it was never published, but one of its observations was not without interest in light of coming events: ‘The good soldier wishes to live only in order that he may play his part in the unit to which he belongs and serves and of which he is an integral part. The expectation of death is as natural to him as was the hope of a long life in time of peace.’ Sadly for Wilson, that expectation was to be realised all too soon. First, however, he completed further sorties against Givet, Namur, Aachen and Charleroi, and won the praise of his young Sergeant Pilot for his good work over the former target on the night of 20-21 May:

‘ ... Wellingtons are slow machines and good targets when they climb. Searchlights played on us; streams of tracer came up at us, so heavy and so near that they made the thin steel plate of my turret vibrate. It seemed very close to us, but in fact was probably further away than appeared, for there was not a hole or dent in us when we returned home three hours later. One very persistent searchlight was in range of my gun, as also a nest of machine-guns whose flashes were clearly visible. I “hosepiped” them for some seconds and was cheered by a voice on the intercom.: “Oh good, Sir Gunner, a very pretty pattern right round them.” Gray turned quickly over the white streak which marked the dam across the river where a canal takes off and dived straight at the bridge. Six 250 lb. bombs dropped on the river bank just clear, I fear, of the bridge ... Then we banked steeply and, shaken by heavy air currents, climbed up and out, chased fore and aft by rather heavy fire. Again he turned and tried to drop his parachute flare. It failed to fall or, if it fell, to light. But he gave the bridge pontoon another half-dozen. I peppered our enemy whose position was revealed by their fire. One little burst and one alone came really near to us ... ’

Towards the end of May, Wilson enjoyed a weekend with his family at his beloved home, “Wynches” in the village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, but was not at all pleased to discover on his return to No. 37 at Feltwell that he had been appointed Group Gunnery Officer - a non-combatant post. No doubt making good use of his contacts and true rank and style, he quickly wangled himself out of the appointment and returned to an operational footing, but as described by his biographer John Marlowe, his earlier promise to his Hitchin constituents ‘not to shelter himself behind the bodies of young men’ was about to cost him his life:

‘On the night of 31 May/1 June he went over to France on his last mission. He did not return. He was posted ‘missing believed killed’. It was subsequently ascertained that his machine had been shot down at Eringhem, near Dunkirk. Two members of the crew, A. T. and Sergeant Brown, were killed outright. The rest were made prisoners of war. The pilot, Gray, later died of wounds. A. T., identified by his many medal ribbons, and by his unsually advanced age for a member of an air-crew, was buried at Eringhem, next to his comrade, Sergeant Brown.’

On his original wooden cross was the simple inscription:

‘No. 75684 P./O. Sir A. T. Wilson, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.P., R.A.F., 31.5.40.’

The legend of “Sir Gunner” lived on, however, for the 1942 oscar-nominated film One of Our Aircraft is Missing included the character Pilot Officer “Sir George” Corbett, a much bemedalled and ancient Rear-Gunner in Wellington “B for Bertie”, a role sympathetically played by Godfrey Tearle; a video of this film is included with the Lot, together with several original letters from Wilson to the secretary of the Royal Society of Arts sent in the mid-1920s, and a large quantity of related books (34), many of them titles by Wilson but also including related histories pertinent to his extraordinary career.