William Newton Wilson

William Newton Wilson
File:Wilson, William Newton.jpg
Residence	144 High Holborn, EC
Occupation	business
Society Membership membership ASL ordinary fellow ASL Foundation Fellow left 1867.07.15 last listed elected_ASL 1864.05.03 societies Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

Notes

Notes From Elsewhere

[Details below refer to his son - a sewing machine maker - , but mention him
William Newton Wilson was born on May 3 1897 in Manchester, the son of a successful cotton spinner, William Wilson of Portland Street.
As was the fashion at the time William Senior christened his heir with the same name as himself and it may have been to avoid confusion, or because his second given name carried a little more panache, that the son chose in later life to dispense with William completely and call himself simply Newton Wilson.
This in itself has led to confusion with even contemporary reports adding a comma between the Newton and the Wilson and suggesting that the firm's title was that of two partners named Newton and Wilson.
William Wilson Senior had started life as a clerk at a cotton mill and Newton was proud to tell in later life of the motto his father kept pinned above his desk : "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might".
By the time Newton had finished his schooling at aged 15, his father had opened his own business and the lad entered the mill, presumably to be groomed to take over the business when his father retired.
But this was not to be, for 12 years later, in 1854, Newton left his father's employ to set up his first small engineering business in Cooper Street, Manchester.