User:MarkVWilson/Mark Wilson (judge)

Mark Wilson was born on the 22nd October 1896 at the Harbour farm, Gurteen, Castlecomer, Co.Kilkenny, Ireland, the youngest of his father`s twenty-two children. He was educated at the Colliery school (1905), scholarship to Kilkenny College (1909), scholarship to Mountjoy School, Dublin (1912), where he was a member of the Leinster Schools` Cup-winning Mountjoy team (1914). He taught at Wesley College, Dublin (1916) and served briefly in the R.A.F (1918-1919).

He entered Trinity College, Dublin (1919). He played rugby for Wanderers R.F.C. (captain 1920) and Leinster (1920). Foundation Scholar of Trinity College (1921), First-class Honours B.A.degree and gold medal for History (1921). Editor “T.C.D.” college magazine, Auditor of College Historical [debating] Society and gold medal for Oratory, and LL.B degree (1922). He was called to the Irish Bar at the King`s Inns, Dublin and joined the Colonial Service as a cadet in Tanganyika (1924). He was appointed Magistrate in Uganda (1926) and in 1927 married Isabel Kilpatrick McNeilly M.B, B.Ch.,B.A.O. Trinity College, Dublin. .Their three children were born, Anthony Mark (1928), Audrey (1931) who died the same year, and Kathryn Margaret (1933).

Resident in Kampala, Mark Wilson was acting Puisne Judge (1934), Chancellor of the Diocese of Uganda (1934-36) and co-editor of the “Uganda Journal”. In 1936 he was appointed a Puisne Judge in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika and received the King George VI Coronation medal (1937) He was co-editor of “Tanganyika Notes and Records”, chairman of the Tanganyika War Compensation Claims Tribunal (1939-46), a member of Makerere College Council (1940-47), sat in the East African Court of Appeal in Nairobi (1943-47) and was appointed Commissioner of the Arusha-Moshi Lands Commission (1946-47).

In 1948 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Gold Coast, became LL.D jure dignitatis of Trinity College, Dublin and Knight Bachelor, knighted by King George VI (1950). In 1952 he sentenced Kwame Nkrumah to gaol for sedition (inciting illegal strikes). Nkrumah was released in 1954 and as leader of the election-winning Convention Peoples Party became Prime Minister of the Gold Coast, later renamed Ghana.

In 1952 he bought the Manor House, Brede, Sussex in preparation for his retirement and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation medal (1953). Sir Mark Wilson died aged 59 on the 10th April 1956 in Accra and is buried in Accra. His family memorial stone is in Kirkinriola graveyard, Ballymena, Co.Antrim.

One afternoon on 7th November 1929 Mark Wilson and three friends, government officials, were playing tennis when someone noticed in the sky, a strange “aeroplane”, a rare sighting in Uganda in those days, a silver-coloured “torpedo-like” machine, “with stubby, fin-like wings”, flying across the sky at perhaps 100-200 m.p.h. It suddenly dived to the ground and disappeared. A crash? Disaster? The men immediately set up a search operation. They searched throughout the night and all the next day, but nothing was found. A meteor, an optical illusion, an unidentified flying object, a mystery? [see The Uganda Journal April 1935]. In 1944 Mark Wilson saw V1 doodlebug flying bombs over London which closely resembled the machine he had seen in Uganda.