Walter Gordon Wilson

Major Walter Gordon Wilson CMG (1874–1957) was a mechanical engineer, inventor and member of the British Royal Naval Air Service. He was credited by the 1919 Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors as the co-inventor of the tank, along with Sir William Tritton.

Walter was born in Blackrock, County Dublin, on 21 April 1874. He was a naval cadet on HMS Britannia. In 1894 he entered King's College, Cambridge, where he studied the mechanical sciences tripos, graduating with a first class degree, B.A., in 1897. Wilson acted as 'mechanic' for the Hon C. S. Rolls on several occasions while they were undergraduates in Cambridge.

Interested in powered flight he collaborated with Percy Sinclair Pilcher and the Hon Adrian Verney-Cave later Lord Braye to attempt to make an aero-engine from 1898. The engine was a flat-twin air cooled and weighed only 40 lb, but shortly before a demonstration flight planned for 30 September 1899 it suffered a crankshaft failure. Unwilling to let down his backers Pilcher opted to demonstrate a glider, which crashed and fatally injured him. The shock of Pilcher's death, at only 33 years old, ended Wilson's plans for aero engines, though he kept the flat twin concept and used it in the cars he subsequently manufactured which he named Wilson-Pilcher.

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