John James Wilson

[1] John James Wilson was a prolific artist, exhibiting in excess of six hundred paintings during his working life.

By the 1871 census, Sidney, Ada (future mother of the submariner Commander Charles Lester Kerr) and Minnie (aged 7,6 and 4 respectively) had also been born.

In 1875, the year of his death, three paintings (The old 'Star' Newington, Kent; On the coast, Etretat, Normandy; Trawler going out-Normandy) were exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) priced at £35, £30 and £50 respectively.

During John Jame's long period in Folkestone his achievements and aspects of his career were mentioned in the local press.

'[23][24] In April 1873 John James Wilson was commissioned to paint a picture of Folkestone as a testimonial for the local Member of Parliament Baron Mayer de Rothschild in acknowledgement of the interest he had taken in the town.

[27] And the speculatively titled 'The approaching storm, South Coast possibly off Folkestone', £5434, 24x37in (Lyndsay Burns, Perth, Scotland; 14 December 2010);[28] The correct location for this latter painting was given when it (lot 80) was sold at Sotheby's Belgravia on 8 April 1975 for a hammer price of £750.

The death notice in the local newspaper (Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald) indicated that he died on 30 January 1875 aged 57.

[34] It shows that John James Wilson died at home in Belle Vue House and that the cause of death was given as 'Diseased Liver (Cirrhosis)'.

When John James's wife Elizabeth died aged 73 in 1901, she was buried along with her husband and their son Vernon, and her name included on the gravestone.

Under John James Wilson's name there is the following inscription, 'FOR 30 YEARS A MEMBER OF THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS' (which became the RBA).

[35] The ArtUK web site lists 18 of John James Wilson's oil paintings at public museums and galleries throughout the United Kingdom.

In 1926 the Folkestone town council purchased his painting ‘’Blowing Fresh, Etretat, Normandy’’, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865, for 35 guineas from a local art dealer.