Alexander Basil Wilson
Alexander Basil Wilson (1846-1913)
of Holywood, Belfast.
1913 Obituary [1]
ALEXANDER BASIL WILSON was born at Belfast, on 26th October 1846, being the younger son of Mr. Alexander George Wilson, of Maryville.
He was educated at Blackheath, and having decided to adopt engineering as a profession, he began his pupilage, on the recommendation of Sir Edward Harland, Bart., with the firm of Messrs. MacNab and Co., engineers, of Greenock. He remained with this firm from 1862 to 1867, during which time he was engaged, among other work, in submarine operations and in the raising of sunken vessels.
On the completion of his apprenticeship he went as an engineer on board various steamships, in order to gain experience in the working of marine engines.
In 1869 he returned to Belfast, and was appointed manager of Messrs. Harland and Wolff's engineering department. He became a partner in the same firm in 1874, another partner being his brother, the late Mr. Walter H. Wilson. He resigned this position in 1878, when the firm was converted into a company, and became the managing director of Messrs. John Rowan and Sons, engineers, of Belfast.
When this firm ceased to exist, in 1883, he started a consulting practice in Belfast, and soon established a large connection. Local matters, and particularly educational work, interested him greatly, and he was for a long period a member of the Library and Technical Instruction Committee of Belfast County Borough Council. On the occasion of the Summer Meeting of this Institution being held in Belfast in 1896, Mr. Wilson was one of the local secretaries, and helped considerably in securing the success of that Meeting; and similar assistance was rendered by him at the Meeting in 1912.
His death took place at his residence, Maryville, Malone, Belfast, on 8th July 1913, in his sixty-seventh year.
He was elected a Member of this Institution in 1882; and he was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.