Born in London, he was the grandson of a Leeds wool merchant, and the fourth child of painter and portraitist Benjamin Wilson.

Orphaned at the age of twelve he was raised and educated by his uncle and guardian, William Bosville, later attending Westminster School.

In 1794, as an ensign in the 15th Light Dragoons, Wilson fought in the celebrated Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies where a handful of cavalry smashed a much larger French force.

[2] After the treaty was signed he travelled to St Petersburg and unaware of the secret clauses, campaigned vigorously for continued friendship between Britain and Russia.

The early warning enabled Britain to detain a Russian warship [ru] then in its waters and unaware of the impending war declaration.

[4] During the British retreat from the Iberian peninsula in January 1809, Wilson refused to comply with the withdrawal and instead decided to oppose the incoming 9,000-man corps commanded by the French General Pierre Belon Lapisse.

He then harried the opposition with such remorseless energy that Lapisse, convinced he was confronted by a far more numerous enemy, switched entirely to the defensive.

Although heavily outnumbered, they managed to stop Marshal Victor's advance into Portugal by partially blowing up the bridge at Alcantara.

[8] On 12 August 1809, Wilson with 4,000 men, including two battalions of the Legion, was defeated by French forces under Marshal Michel Ney at the Battle of Puerto de Baños.

[14] In 1821 and by now a Radical, he attended the funeral of Queen Caroline whose treatment by her husband George IV had made her popular.