George Wilson (Chief Colonial Secretary of Uganda)

George Wilson CB (of the civil division) (13 May 1862 – 12 December 1943) also known as bwana tayari - "Mr. Ready", amongst natives in East Africa, was a general African staff employee of the Imperial British East African company (1890–1891). He served as Chief Lieutenant to then-Captain Sir Frederick D. Lugard from 1889 to 1890, and was second in command during Lugard's caravan expedition to Uganda on 6 August 1890 (in which Lugard travelled with 120 Swahilis, 9 Persian transport attendants/agriculturalists, and four other Europeans, besides Wilson himself). The Europeans were Fenwick De Winton (son of Sir Francis, who was Lugard's chief), William Grant, and Archibald Brown. Wilson joined the Uganda Service/government in 1894 and his first order of business was establishing a 'native baraza' or council that was structured as a native administration, with himself as the chief administrative officer who presided over all matters involving the government in conjunction with the Kabaka and later on he was in civil charge of the Protectorate during the outbreak of the Sudanese mutiny. He was appointed first class transport officer then the 1st class assistant of the Uganda protectorate on 30 August 1894. Was the sub-commissioner of the Buganda Kingdom in 1895. Also Was Her Britannic Majesty's acting commissioner and the commander in chief of the Uganda Protectorate and the consul-general (5 November 1897 – 29 January 1898). Was awarded the C.B. on 2 January 1899. He was the first ever Chief collector for the Bunyoro district (August 1900 – 17 November 1901). He was tasked with drawing up the 1901 Ankole agreement and presenting it to the Ankole chiefs and the Ankole people before it was signed in August of that year with the blessing of Ankole, the colonial administration and the UK government in Whitehall with Wilson as the protectorate's Chief negotiator and representative. Mr. Wilson was then the deputy commissioner of the Uganda Protectorate at Entebbe, government house (1 April 1902 – 1904) and deputy governor of the protectorate (2 December 1907 – 1 March 1909). He was H.M. – His Majesty's commander in chief and acting commissioner of the Uganda protectorate (1904–1906) and (27 April 1907 – November 1907). Was a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts and a silver medal recipient since 28 June 1907.

Early life
George Wilson was born in 1862 in Glasgow, Scotland. His parents were George Wilson (senior) who was a sculptor and Jane Leslie whose occupation was household duties. George was moved to Australia when he was just 5 years of age. He grew up in a rough background in Australia then went on to become a music hall entertainer. Eventually the eldest of 9 siblings, he was also the discoverer of a coal mine and was a working director in Australia as well as the head of a regiment he had raised, however things with the regiment went sour as did the stability of his marriage and so he became a missionary man and sailed off for East Africa with his brother (Charles Wilson) in 1888 and was discovered about a year later by an official of the IBEAC.

Exploration of East Africa and British colonial service














According to the diaries of Lord Lugard, George Wilson was working with & teaching ex-slaves (whom he helped to free) and coastal tribes near Mombasa in January 1889 as he was chiefly engaged in helping the missions with the fugitive slaves from their Arab masters he spent at least 5 months in Fuladoyo (a runaway slave settlement in coastal Kenya) in 1889 engaged in this work and so by December 20, 1889 he joined Lugard's first expedition from Mombasa to Machakos. Under Lugard's strong persuasion to IBEAC director Mackenzie, Wilson was offered a job by the company that he gladly joined on 1 January 1890. But 5 days later Wilson became very sick with fever which persisted throughout the first expedition, though this wasn't the first time, Wilson had become sick before with his brother whilst working in east Africa the year prior. Wilson then later joined Lugard's second expedition on 6 August 1890, on the Sabaki trip in which Lugard's caravan left the coast at Malindi and moved slowly up the Sabaki, thereon after crossing Tsavo river, they came across a Swahili caravan with slaves that were being transported by traders who fled but were later caught by Lugard and placed on trial in Mombasa. Meanwhile, some of the slaves were successfully freed and the malnourished children were fed and clothed. and between 1890 and 1897 one third of all slaves in East Africa, are said to have been freed by officers of the IBEAC & the 1895 protectorate government according to Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge who also estimated the legal slave population held by the Arabs to be at minimum 275,000 in 1897. By 12 September 1890 On Lugard's 2nd expedition, Wilson's health had deteriorated to the point of losing consciousness having already suffered constant health challenges along the journey and having a very weak pulse so Lugard acted quickly by taking Wilson to his tent and using natural medicine like rubbing him with carbolic oil to jump-start the heart beats, which seemed to have worked, and so George was given whiskey to ease the pain; however, his health challenges continued that evening and so Lugard stayed up nursing Wilson all day and night, which saved his life. From various accounts, George was committed to joining Lugard for his Uganda expedition in 1890. Captain Lugard Knew him well and formed a high opinion of Wilson as he was "very successful with the kikuyu"and Lugard credited Wilson for teaching him valuable lessons in his interactions with the locals, emphasising the positive impact Wilson had on his own understanding and relationship with the Swahili community. After being engaged by James Stewart in August 1891 For a while, Mr. Wilson was with the Scottish Industrial Mission at Kibwezi where they met up in Mombasa tasked with taking back control of Fort Dagoretti on 19 September 1891. Lugard, on his way back to the Coast in August 1892, found Wilson at work with his road engineering skills on the Mackinnon Road, which was being built by the Mission (from Mazeras to kibwezi via Duruma, the Taru Plain, Ndi and Tsavo ) at the cost of Sir William Mackinnon to increase trade with Uganda. George Wilson employed the WaKamba for the 185 mile construction of the road between Tsavo and Kibwezi and they were paid one ring of brass wire per day (equivalent to 4 annas ) for eight hours of daily work, many of these men were subsequently engaged for a month at a time doing the manual labour. In the wake of Mackinnon's death, Wilson had managed to complete 110 miles of the road. and completed 174 miles by 1894. Wilson joined the Uganda service on 30 August 1894. He soon made his mark as officer in charge of Kampala station. He demonstrated effective leadership, and was hence placed in charge of the protectorate region during the Sudanese Mutiny in September 1897. There's an extensive account in John Dawson Ainsworth's memoirs about how George Wilson was ambushed by Wa-kikuyus under the command of Waiyaki Wa Hinga for a week and a half, which forced Wilson and his men to vacate the fort in Dagoretti at night and head towards Machakos on 30 March 1891 under the advice of Ernest Gedge with his men and the 30 African soldiers he had. This was reportedly the first major confrontation between the Agikuyus and the British imperialist forces. Wilson was left at the fort by lugard due to further health setbacks, leading Lugard to make the difficult decision to leave him at a station in Dagoretti with a garrison of thirty men while the rest of the expedition moved forward, though Wilson's health did improve rapidly in the "cold, bracing air of the mountains" as Lugard claims in his book – 'The rise of our East African Empire'. According to Maina wa Kĩnyattĩ a marxist historian – the dagoretti defeat along with another successive defeat for Wilson and his men that were unable to sustain Waiyaki lead attacks (following a recapture and rebuilding of the station at Dagoertti) that meant the loss of control of the previously burned garrison in a dash for safety back to Machakos where their headquarters were (which was built by Lugard in 1889 ), is in fact what led to Wilson's replacement by Colonel Erick Smith, who refocused his efforts on building another fort in Kanyonyo that he later named "Fort Smith". On the other hand, when Wilson, who had only barely recovered from his sabaki trip with Captain Lugard, and who was in charge of the fort that he and Lugard built to near completion in October 1890 that he was tasked with finishing off  could not (along with his 40 porters and askaris) defend against the kikuyus to remain in the station especially because he was running out of ammunition and supplies and did not receive any new stock from the coast that was sent to him (following Lugard's departure in November 1890), he was (according to multiple accounts including one from Lugard), unfairly dismissed by the IBEA company for abandoning the station; however, the company blamed his ambush on the mistreatment of natives. Even though Wilson and the multiple officials there, maintained that the company was responsible for the failure, due to the lack of assistance even after a request was sent. Other accounts from people that met George Wilson like John Walter Gregory claim that George was persuaded to retire from his IBEA post by the leaders of a caravan returning from Uganda following the failed project, as opposed to being abruptly dismissed. This stands in stark contrast to the statement made by the IBEAC's Mackinnon In a letter to Stewart on 27 October 1891 where Mackinnon wrote that Wilson had "failed to conciliate the natives". Meanwhile in 1923 Brigadier-General Austin gave his account of what transpired when he was a witness within the precincts of fort smith in 1890. He narrated that hostilities had emerged between Wa-kikuyu and company officials when Wa Hinga had murdered two of Wilson's porters that went to his village to buy some food for the garrison, and that day by day the number of those killed and wounded in the ensuing Waiyaki besiegement of the company post at Dagoretti, increased. It is hard to find one isolating factor that led to the kikuyus' besieging of the Dagoretti fort against Wilson and his men, especially considering that Wilson initially struck a positive friendship with the Agikuyus; however, one suggestion from an associate professor and author at Biola University named Evanson Wamagatta is that, days after Lugard left for Uganda, his men and officials at Dagoertti did not honour the IBEA agreement and the blood-brotherhood that Lugard made with the Waikikuyu and its leader Waiyaki because what followed was the forcible recruitment of the kikuyu's as porters, purposeful theft of things like food from the kikuyus, local squabbles between IBEA officials and the Kikuyu residents, Harassment and sexual assault of the kikuyu women, along with the failure of the kikuyu to be paid for supplying and delivering food to the man in charge – George Wilson. Nonetheless, despite his frictional encounters in the first 3 years of engaging with the natives via IBEA, George's long-term career was not damaged furthermore he was eager whilst patient when it came to dealing with the natives. He could speak several of the local languages, having learnt how to speak Swahili and Masai from two of his African wives had spent some noticeable period of time working as an administrator in the Nile province anxious but determined to push for administrative expansion into the North East and was known to be a good judge of character with his sharp assessments hence why he was known as bwana tayari – an official who knew the country better than anyone else, who was also described as 'L'etat c'est moi.' by the late Sir John Milner Gray. By 30 August 1894 George Wilson was appointed the first class transport officer then the 1st class assistant of the Uganda protectorate, afterwards. Then since 31 January 1895 he existed in the capacity of a sub-commissioner of the Buganda Kingdom and was the principal British official in Buganda at the time then from 5 November 1897 to 29 January 1898, Wilson was the acting commissioner and the commander in chief of the Uganda Protectorate and the consul-general in the absence of colonel Ternan but that same year had proven to be the next biggest political challenge of Wilson's leadership when British power & political stability in the protectorate came under threat due to the on-going Sudanese revolt which prompted Wilson to communicate directly with the UK Prime Minister at 10 downing who was also the Secretary of State for foreign affairs; On 5 January Wilson writing to the UK Foreign Office, informed The PM Lord Salisbury "I regret to be unable to intimate to your Lordship the termination of the mutineers in Usoga" following this, Wilson's leadership was debated in the House of Lords between Lord Stanmore and the president of the privy council, the Duke of Devonshire on 3 March 1898 in the absence of the PM and as tensions continued to rise Wilson issued a letter to Major Macdonald on the 16th March referring to the sudanese mutiny by writing:

"In Uganda the intensity of the relief experienced on the suppression of the Soudanese mutiny is beyond description. As I anticipated in a previous despatch, the deep gravity of the mutiny has put all local troubles out of focus, and it has been difficult to rouse the native authorities into taking the necessary action for the decisive stamping out of the Mwanga revolt...I had found it necessary some time ago on account of certain previous unauthorised journeys during disturbed periods to warn the Missions that, unless I was informed of all intended movements in the country by their members, I could not undertake to have proper precautions taken for their safety.."

However following his services against the Sudanese mutineers that he defeated with the help of between three thousand to four thousand armed Wagandas after leaving from mengo on 19 October 1898, wilson was awarded the (Civil)Companion of the most honourable order of the bath (CB) for his outstanding military efforts – which is second only to a knighthood - despite not being a trained soldier. It all began when George Wilson (chief political officer at the time ) uncovered a serious plot amidst the Nandi expedition which resulted in the arrest of two Baganda chiefs: Mukwenda protestant chief of Singo and the Roman Catholic Kaima chief. Both of whom, George Wilson charged with incitement to revolt and sentenced them to five and seven years of imprisonment with hard labour at Eldoma Ravine. Meanwhile Mwanga II had fled. More information about the mutiny can be found in Hubert's: King's African Rifles. In the following years, Wilson oversaw important developments in the Protectorate region like the Buganda agreement of the 1900. In 1901 George Wilson visited Ankole and decided that the country was ready for an agreement, so under Jackson's instructions he drafted the ankole agreement similar to the toro agreement, and presented it with great care to the chiefs and the people of ankole, and so the agreement was signed on 7 August 1901; Jackson then wrote to the Foreign Office informing Lord Lansdowne, Britain's Foreign Secretary, with a despatch on the 25 October:

"This Agreement Is, I consider a very fair one to the Kabaka and chiefs, and entails no actual out-of-pocket expenditure in the form of subsidies. It is one which will cause the Kabaka and chiefs to interest themselves in the question of taxation, and, in view of the fact that it was drawn up at their own special request by Mr. Wilson after he had ample opportunity of judging them and their capabilities, I venture to submit it, with confidence for your Lordship’s ratification.

To Which the foreign secretary though displeased but satisfied with Wilson's deal, responded with a ratification of the agreement, the foreign minister's assistant named Brooke informed Jackson:

"His Lordship observes that the Agreement is said to follow the lines of that entered into regarding Toro, of which, however, a copy has not reached this Department. Lord Lansdowne approved the object with which it has been drawn. But although the Agreement is described as a draft it appears to have been signed by a number of natives who probably considered it as a completed document. For this reason, His Lordship is unwilling to criticise it in detail or to make alterations which would suggest themselves were such criticism undertaken, as the result might be to shake the confidence of the native signatories in the good faith of the administration." Therefore Wilson's Ankole deal was confirmed by the Foreign Office on 30 January 1902.

However, the agreement was later withdrawn by the protectorate government following the murder of the ankole sub-commissioner Mr. Henry Galt who was described as a "ruthless" administrator that mistreated the local. But the agreement was re-instated in 1912. George Wilson was deeply involved in shaping the administrative policies of Uganda by working closely with local chiefs and establishing a formal relationship with them to create an administrative system of governance that works for everyone, one of the ways in which Wilson did this was by increasingly relinquishing more judicial responsibility to chiefs in the local hierarchy and to the African courts, this system of government crafted by the innovation of Wilson was to be the style and format of administration in Uganda for the following 60 years, and so he was subsequently described as being the chief architect of Uganda's native policies. He was also largely responsible for tempering the hostile behaviour senior officials at Entebbe had towards Bunyoro natives. On 1 April 1902 he was made the deputy commissioner of the Uganda protectorate in Entebbe until 1906, and in between those dates Commissioner Wilson helped push forward the efforts and the works of the sleeping sickness commission made up of medical experts and other officials in Uganda that were sent by the British Royal Society to investigate the Sleeping sickness outbreak in Uganda which had peaked by 1910 particularly in Busoga and had claimed 250,000 lives when it ended in 1920. Wilson also lobbied the colonial office to give greater protections to African farmers, including the right to kill elephants that reportedly frequently attacked people; however, the underlying reason for this lobbying that he and Sadler (whom Wilson was deputy to) pushed for, was for the express purpose of maintaining the annual colonial income, this is evidenced by the fact that when Commissioner Wilson attended the 1906 Annual General meeting hosted by the Royal African Society in London, he stated that the value and volume of Ivory exports had recently fallen for the Protectorate colony, thereby reducing colonial income for that financial year. Then in 1904 to 1906 George was appointed His Majesty's commander in chief and acting commissioner of the Uganda protectorate and in between those two years he was responsible for receiving multiple outbreak reports one of which is well documented in the journal of the royal army medical corps. The situation became serious enough that Wilson sent a despatch to the Foreign Office given the lack of medical assistance from London as the metropole. The letter was dated November 1904, with Wilson informing Foreign Secretary Lansdowne of the risks posed to the Unyoro district and the unsuccessful epidemiological efforts of the scarce public health officials along with the skeleton laboratory team at Entebbe, stating:

"Present researches here must be somewhat purely academic, and, however resultant of facts of intense scientific interest, are not sufficiently advancing our hopes of prevention".

So following the persistence of the epidemic, in January 1908 Wilson issued a notice banning all fishing activities on Lake Victoria which was assessed to increase the risk of the spread. "All fishing upon the lake shores is illegal, any subject of His Highness found fishing would be liable to punishment," the notice read in part. Amidst all this Wilson was also responsible for carrying out a range of other day-to-day engagement and administration roles. Commissioner Wilson was also known for leading the inquiry in to the death of Harry George Galt – a man regarded as a ruthless colonial officer that had been recently appointed sub-commissioner of the western province of the protectorate, before being murdered with a spear by a native. Wilson was convinced Galt's death was politically motivated and so he cautioned in 1905 that the spirit of unrest in ankole would not subside until the Protectorate government thoroughly investigates and takes decisive actions against the perpetrators responsible. There's a book by Edward I. Steinhart published in 1977 that goes into depth about the investigation and the decisions that George Wilson made following the inquiry. Also the Galt series article goes into depth about Henry Galt and his murder. On 28 March 1907 Sir Henry Hesketh Bell wrote to the secretary of state for the colonies – Victor Bruce, to inform him that his deputy – George Wilson C.B. will be drawing up the annual colonial report for the financial year of 1905–6 for the East African Protectorate instead because he administered the protectorate government during a significant portion of the year under review. Less than a month later on 27 April 1907, upon Sir Hesketh Bell's leave, Wilson took over once again as H.M. commander in chief of the Uganda Protectorate up until at least 22 October 1907. And so once Sir Hesketh Bell returned, he became deputy Commissioner; however, upon (the then Under-secretary of state for the colonies) Sir Winston Churchill's visit to Uganda in December of that year, Sir Hesketh Bell was appointed governor which automatically made George Wilson deputy governor of the Uganda Protectorate. Wilson was then in charge of setting up relief measures in response to the Busoga famine in 1908 after Hesketh Bell sent him from Entebbe to Busoga to investigate the crisis to which Wilson then reported back to Bell: "From all the information I could gather it appeared that from 50 to 75 per cent of the population of about 300,000 were in imminent danger of starvation".

Wilson retired from his position as deputy governor of the protectorate due to ill-health on 1 March 1909; even so, he did retire with one of the highest pensions and annual salaries amongst the officials in that year. However Wilson was not without controversies, he was criticised for the ways in which he handled the Nyangire rebellion, at first Wilson did not believe that the natives were capable of such sophisticated political thought and action. He believed, instead, that the Catholic missionaries were behind the rebellion in an attempt to short-change their Protestant rivals this is further emphasised when shortly after the suppression of the rebellion and the arrest and subsequent exile of 54 bunyoro chiefs from the kingdom (49 of which were Catholic that were later replaced with 51 Protestants) Wilson wrote:

"The conspiracy had been marked with such able organisation and recusancy for a long period so quietly and persistently sustained as to stamp it with the suspicion of non-native guidance."

and later when Wilson gave his speech at the Royal Society of Arts for his report regarding the progress of the protectorate in the afternoon of 15 January 1907 Wilson remarked towards the end of his speech:

"Natives under a wise restraint can be like good and even clever children [whereas] natives in their wild impulses and with passions aflame can be very devils incarnate."

And earlier in the speech Wilson also strongly aired white supremacist/racial superiority sentiments stating:

"We are the superior race by virtue of our ability to teach and to restrain, and the natives readily acknowledge this, as they readily throw themselves upon us for the responsibility of judgements in decisions in all grave crises and will continue to do so until generations of civilisation remedy their mental defects, or we gratuitously or out of mistaken sentiment throw them entirely upon themselves."

These views mixed with a desire to foster British styled governance and administration in Uganda to varying degrees of success in part explains the ways in which Wilson governed the territory, nonetheless his policies had a profound impact on the geo-politics of the kingdom for decades to come. Wilson was also proud that Uganda was becoming "less anti-malarial" under his leadership particularly in the area of health.

Achievements and Honours
On 28 November, Mengo Hospital (also known as Namirembe Hospital) was founded by the acting commissioner George Wilson. Hoima which was a chain of forts in a region of the bunyoro district dates back to 1894, it was established as the capital of Bunyoro in 1900 by Commissioner Wilson and from thereon it was formally recognised by the commissioner, as the chief administrative centre of the bunyoro district. Due to his outstanding service and leadership during the 1894 Sudanese mutiny he was awarded a CB on 2 January 1899. Sir Albert cook reflects on Wilson's work post retirement in his book and remarks "he (George Wilson) richly deserved his CB".

Wilson also introduced automobiles in Kenya, when he acquired & drove his first car––De Dion Bouton––lowered from a steamship arriving from France to the port of Mombasa in December 1903. Author Gavin Bennett wrote "Summoning what breath and dignity he could muster, George Wilson sat poker stiff at the wheel of Kenya’s first ever car and, staring fixedly ahead, he uttered the historic cry: PUSH!..The eccentric George Wilson offloaded a curious contraption called a De Dion Bouton before a bemused gathering of pith helmets and parasols at Mombasa’s old port..Wilson, ably assisted by his wife, had to pay earnest attention to a service manual to discover where to put the oil and grease and how to adjust the various brass levers on the steering wheel to get the spark and fuel mixture just right..when he finally got the engine to fire, he had indeed started something. For while his De Dion was the only car in Kenya, it was a sluggish conveyance. But the moment another car followed in its tracks, it became a racing machine."

He had a keen interest in auto-mobiles, and is also reported to be the first European that drove a motor-car in Uganda, when in April 1904 he returned to Africa with a 25 horse power motor vehicle to tour the protectorate via +600 miles of road built since 1890, with fuel Wilson had regularly imported from Bombay

He spent time writing about his experience living in the tropical country of Uganda, and his 28-page notes were published as a book called Uganda; notes for travellers, by Mr. George Wilson, CB which can also be found on the UK national archives website in their colonial office records.On an evening conference on 7 November 1906 whilst he was still H.M. commander in chief of Uganda, he attended the annual meeting in London where he was the special guest of honour Hosted by the Royal African Society, to read out his much awaited paper to which he got much praise for, titled:" The progress of the Uganda Protectorate" a few months later on 15 January 1907 he read out the same paper as the principal guest of the evening hosted by the Royal Society of Arts and chaired by Wilson's old friend and comrade Sir Frederick Lugard – 5 months later on 28 June 1907 George Wilson was awarded a silver medal and was made a fellow of the Royal society of Arts for his important contributions via the paper he wrote on the progress of the Uganda protectorate. Wilson was also involved with coming up with new ideas of setting up an efficient postage system in Uganda given the poor communication systems that existed at the time so he consulted with Rev. Ernest Millar, who worked for the Church Missionary Society at Mengo to take up the responsibility of looking into it. On 25 January 1905, H.M. acting commissioner George Wilson C.B, formally opened Mengo high school which was a step forward for education. In the following year on 29 March 1906, George Wilson who was still the acting commissioner, declared the opening of King's college Budo who had the youngest native King Daudi Chwa next to him along with Bishop Tucker, in the official photograph. On the morning of January 15, 1908. Wilson's secretary uses the typewriter to place into writing on a letter the instructions given out by the deputy governor – George Wilson. Wilson, then instructs every colonial administration in the land to buy all items of antique and cultural value and send them to the colonial capital – Entebbe, which was only agreed upon last minute.

Mr. Wilson's letter read as follows: "I am directed to inform you that his excellency the Governor has made arrangements for the opening in Entebbe of a Protectorate Museum, for the collection of local curios of all descriptions, such as articles of interest and specimen of native weapons and manufactures, and local products, vegetables and mineral: in fact of all articles of historical, ethnological and local industries of interest."

The Uganda Museum now stands as the oldest museum in East Africa, founded in 1908 by deputy governor George Wilson CB who first pitched the Idea back in 1902 for the collection of objects of interest throughout the protectorate region. The items were housed in fort lugard (1908), then moved to the Margaret trowell school of art at makerere in 1941 and later funds were raised to house the objects at a permanent residence and the museum was moved to kitante hill in 1954 Interestingly there is a place called Fort George in western Uganda that was built by Captain Lugard, that he named after George Mackenzie and George Wilson.

Personal life
After departing from East Africa via Mombasa headed for England for the first time on 27 September 1899 aboard the SS Bundesrath (DOAL) with six months holiday leave Wilson met and married Clarissa Adelina Humphreys On 20 February 1900 (daughter of colonel James Charlton Humphreys) in St Stephen's in East Twickenham. Shortly after, the couple returned to Mombasa on 19 April 1900 aboard the SS Herzog(DOAL) and since then, Clarissa would attend attend state events with her husband like the parade ceremony in Busindi where he was awarded and pinned with a medal for his vital role in suppressing the Sudanese revolt; she would also play lawn-tennis with him in their garden at the government house in Hoima

By 1922 they were living at 6 Marine Parade in Hythe, Kent. This is further evidenced by the 1921 England and Wales census – long after George Wilson had retired from colonial service and soon after he and his wife had moved from their previous address in Laleham Middlesex.   They both then later on moved to another location called The Farthing Lyminge in Kent. Finally their last noticeable move was to Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent which was confirmed by the 1939 England and Wales census, and where they lived for the rest of their lives. Wilson died on 12 December 1943 at Royal Tunbridge Wells. his obiturary was published by the Royal Society of Arts. His widow Clarissa died on 5 July 1958 at Southfields nursing home in Eastbourne Sussex.

However, when George Wilson at the end of 1894, replaced Ansorge as the chief British official at Kampala he had with him at the time two African wives one of them was Zanzibari and the other a Maasai that were kept locked up in the Kampala fort, he was also taught how to speak Swahili and the Masai language by his two wives. Wilson had at least one child named Edward Wilson, with his Swahili speaking wife from an area called Mwembe Tayari in Mombasa.

Published work

 * "The progress of the Uganda Protectorate"
 * Uganda; notes for travellers, by Mr. George Wilson, CB (28 pages)