He was born the son of an ornamental plasterer in the Charing Cross area of London, where his father had sculpted the ceilings of the Foundling Hospital.

In 1752 he went to Italy with his sculptor friend Louis-François Roubiliac to learn to sculpt in marble, and stayed for seven years, living first in Rome and then in Florence.

[2] Whilst in Rome he met and befriended his first patron, William Locke of Norbury, who thereafter accompanied Wilton on his tour of Italy.

[citation needed] A marble bust of the physician and scholar Antonio Cocchi, carved by Wilton in 1755, his last year in Italy, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

[5] He built up a considerable practice, making busts and monuments, including the memorial to James Wolfe in Westminster Abbey.

This massive statue portrayed the king on horseback in Roman garb, and was cast in lead and gilded before being shipped to America and erected at Bowling Green, near the tip of Manhattan in August 1770.