Born on 10 June 1803, he was elder son of Harry Bristow Wilson, by his wife Mary Anne, daughter of John Moore.
In the spring of 1841 Wilson joined Archibald Campbell Tait in the ‘protest of the four tutors’ against John Henry Newman's Tract XC.
In the Lent term of 1851 he delivered the Bampton Lectures, taking as his subject ‘The Communion of the Saints: an Attempt to illustrate the True Principles of Christian Union’ (Oxford, 1851).
Passages in the latter essay provoked a heresy action against Wilson – John William Burgon was especially dissatisfied with his views – in the Court of Arches.
On 25 June 1862 Wilson, whose case was tried together with that of Rowland Williams, was found guilty on three out of eight of the articles brought against him, and was sentenced to suspension for a year by the Dean of Arches, Stephen Lushington.