William Wilson (died 1948)
1948 Obituary [1]
"It is with regret that we have to record the death in Carolina of Dr. William Wilson, who was born in Preston and trained in Manchester and Cambridge. He played an important part in the development of the high-vacuum thermionic tube and radio-telegraphy, mostly in Canada and America.
He was sixty-one years of age. He received his education at the Manchester Grammar School, and went on to the Manchester University to study radio-activity under the late Lord Rutherford. After gaining his M.Sc. degree he went up to Cambridge to continue his studies under the late Sir J. J . Thomson. He gained at the same time both the Langworthy Scholarship and the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship offered for the British Empire.
He obtained his Cambridge D.Sc. degree, and about 1912 went out to Canada to take up the post of Lecturer in Physics in the University of Toronto. He joined the research staff of the Engineering Department of the Western Electric Co in 1914, and for twenty-eight years he did successful work on radio-transmission problem and long distance radio-telephony, and also carried out research work on vacuum tubes and general research connected with radio-transmission problems.
In 1942 he retired because of ill-health but recovered sufficiently to accept the post of Professor of Physics in the State College of North Carolina three years later."