Christopher Wilson (son)

Christopher Wilson (1765–1845) was an English businessman, banker and political activist of anti-reform views.

He was the eldest son of Christopher Wilson and his wife Margaret Parke. He attended Hawkshead School with William Wordsworth.

Wilson went into the cotton spinning trade, near Staveley. He had a business interest in gunpowder, being a partner in the Low Wood Gunpowder Mill at Haverthwaite. This mill was a major supplier of export gunpowder for Africa to Liverpool, up to the Slave Trade Act 1807. Wilson was connected to Liverpool through his uncle Thomas Parke.

Wilson joined the Kendal Bank, founded by his father, Joseph Maude, and Thomas Crewdson, as a partner, in 1795. He became senior partner in 1812, when the bank became Wilson, Crewdson & Co.

The 1818 election for Westmorland was closely contested by Henry Brougham, against two Tories of the locally predominant Lowther family, Viscount Lowther and Henry Lowther. Wilson acted as chairman of the local Lowther Committee. He held an anti-Reform meeting; while John Wakefield II, of the rival banking family, held a pro-Brougham meeting. The Kendal Chronicle alleged that Wilson, a commissioner for the land tax, had employed "sly cunning", after Brougham had repeatedly claimed in Parliament that Wilson had delayed returning assessments in order to disenfranchise reform voters.

Matters became rowdy, with a Reform mob setting up a barricade in Kendal to keep out the Lowther party arriving from Dallam Tower to the south. At this time Wordsworth, whose politics were Tory, commented in a letter to Lord Lonsdale, Viscount Lowther's father, that Wilson was wealthy, but not popular. Both Lowther candidates were returned in the two-member constituency.

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