He joined the Army in 1939 and served with the Highland Light Infantry and Royal Armoured Corps during World War II.
He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1946, and served as an Advocate Depute from 1948–51 and as Sheriff-substitute at Greenock from 1955–56 and in Glasgow from 1956–65.
He was aboard the cruise ship Lakonia when she caught fire and sank with the loss of 128 lives in 1963.
On 3 March 1968 he was created a life peer with the title Baron Wilson of Langside, of Broughton in the County of the City of Edinburgh, taking the Labour whip.
[6] Thus, at the 1979 United Kingdom general election, The Glasgow Herald reported him as one of several former Labour MPs and ministers who were instead backing Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives.