Wilson, James Thomas (JT)

James Thomas Wilson (1861-1945); married Jane Elizabeth Lorrain-Smith (1864-1891) in 1890; married Mabel Mildred Millicent Salomons( ?-1944) in 1898.

Children of JT Wilson
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1. Jane Elizabeth Margaret Lorrain Wilson (1891- ?); married Tom de Burgh,1914; married Allan Clunies-Ross, 1929.
2. Louise Wilson (1900- ?)
3. Dorothea Wilson (1902- ?)
4. Katherine Wilson (1904- ?)
5. Thomas Douglas Glover Wilson (1906- ?)
6. John Julian Glover Wilson (1909- ?)
7. James Maxwell Glover Wilson(1913- ?)

Grandson
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Patrick McCartney de Burgh (1916- ?)

Parents of J. T. Wilson
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Thomas Wilson (1825-1896)
Helen Wilson (1824- 1902)

James Thomas Wilson was born at Moniave, Scotland. His father was a Free Church schoolmaster, and he was initially educated by his parents and Dr T. B. Grierson. He graduated MB,CM. from the University of Edinburgh in 1883. He was subsequently resident house surgeon, ship's surgeon, and Demonstrator in Anatomy. In 1887, he was appointed Demonstrator in Anatomy at the University of Sydney, and Professor of Anatomy in 1890. He was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the University of Cambridge in 1920, retiring in 1934. He died in 1945.

Wilson carried on an extensive correspondence with his scientific colleagues over many years, in fact up to 40 years in one case. He also corresponded regularly with his eldest daughter, Jane ("Jeannie"), and their letters form a large component of the total correspondence. Jane had graduated B.A. in 1912, had married Tom de Burgh in 1914, by whom she had a son, Patrick, in 1916. She had marital difficulties and divorced de Burgh in 1923. From about 1920, she was virtually a single parent, but in 1929 she married Allan Clunies-Ross. Throughout the 1920's, she continued to work at different jobs, marking Intermediate Examination papers, then taking lectures at the University of Sydney in psychology and anthropology, so that she could in turn lecture in psychology and English literature to classes in the Worker's Educational Association and the Department of Tutorial Classes at the University of Sydney.

Correspondence forms a very large part of the records. The correspondence between J. T. Wilson and his scientific colleagues provides a good picture of the development of biological, medical and zoological research from 1890 to 1940. Together with such men as J. P. Hill and C. J. Martin, Wilson carried out some pioneering work with, for example, marsupial and monotrenes. The correspondence with Jane Wilson (de Burgh, Clunie-Ross) is interesting because of the social and political comment it provides on Sydney middle-class life through the period 1920 to 1935.