The Many George Wilsons

Bonus summer special read: Is the name “George Wilson” following me?

In 2019, I wrote a story about a professional walker or pedestrian from the early 1800s called George Wilson. He was from my hometown of Newcastle, and he became pretty much the most famous sportsman in Britain, despite being incarcerated in a brutal prison. That story’s called The Man Who Walked His Life Away. It’s one of my favourites. Here’s the opening:

George Wilson stepped out into the medieval-walled prison yard and began to walk. He was 47 years old, beaten-down, and half-starved. His squat frame and stubby legs hardly suggested athletic excellence. But Wilson was well-known as a perambulator, a peregrinator, and a master of “leg-ology.” He was a celebrated competitive walker and a champion in the bizarre sport of pedestrianism.

This story came about because I was aware of George Wilson but couldn’t find a definitive account of his incredible life and achievements (and misdemeanours), so I wrote it. This was George Wilson #1.

While I was researching that story, I came across another George Wilson. This wasn’t really a surprise, because I was typing “George Wilson” into an online newspaper archive likely filled with hundreds of men with the same name. But this find was unusual, because the second George Wilson wasn’t a man.

George Wilson #2 was a young woman who was arrested in Baltimore in 1838 for the crime of stealing a horse. She was dressed as a man, and “George Wilson” wasn’t her real name. She refused to reveal her identity (although it was determined that she was actually from England). Following an epic crime spree, she became known as the notorious “Female Horse Thief”, but her name seemed lost to history. This kick-started another big project, The Female Horse Thief:

The thief was stripped of her frock coat and pantaloons, clothed in “the proper garments of her sex,” and removed to the jail’s female quarters. Prisoner number 3133 was recorded in the penitentiary ledger as “George Wilson (a female).” She refused to reveal her true name. Her crime was recorded as “stealing horses.” According to the ledger, held in the Maryland State Archives, she was from Yorkshire, England. She was 22 years old and five feet three inches in height, with fair skin, black hair, and black eyes. She had no occupation, and her residence was given as “No Where.”

You can read that one on Medium or listen to a version of it on the Singular Discoveries podcast.

Then I wrote The Lintz Green Station Murder, a true crime story about the killing of the stationmaster at an isolated railway station — one of Britain’s most mysterious unsolved murders. This is a story that’s local to me. I walked past the old station regularly, and my grandad drove an engine at the nearby cokeworks.

Several contemporary reports and subsequent accounts named the murdered stationmaster as “Joseph Wilson”, and that’s the name I started with when I dived into the project. But I soon found out he wasn’t called Joseph Wilson. The original sources confirmed he was actually called George Wilson. That’s George Wilson #3, and this one was a genuine coincidence, as it wasn’t the name I was searching for.

George Wilson had fought with his attacker, it was determined. But there was no indication of who the attacker might be. Samuel Elliott described hearing a rustling in the bushes after the gunshot but did not see anyone. The secluded station and the stationmaster’s house were surrounded by woods, and it seemed that the murderer had slipped away undetected. As the Newcastle Chronicle later reported, “Not a soul but the dead man saw the assailant.”

You can read that one on Medium, and it’s also an episode of the podcast.

Then I realised I’d previously written briefly about another George Wilson — George Wilson #4 — in my book All With Smiling Faces about the early years of Newcastle United Football Club. George Wilson played for the club about 180 times in the Edwardian era.

Up front, alongside Jack Rutherford, Jimmy Howie and Albert Shepherd, were two players who had established themselves during the previous season, Sandy Higgins and George Wilson. Outside-left George Wilson was another of Newcastle’s tricky little wingers, signed from Everton after a bust-up with the Toffees’ board. Both Scottish internationals, Higgins and Wilson had long careers at Newcastle and chipped in with some very important goals.

You can find more details on the All With Smiling Faces website.

Next, I wrote a book about The Tyne Bridge. I wanted the book to be about the people who built and used the bridge, so I went looking for individuals with interesting stories. Imagine my surprise when I found that one of the labourers on the bridge was a WWI veteran named George Wilson. And George Wilson #5 had quite a story.

After the completion of the bridge, Wilson struggled to find employment, travelling as far as Penzance, Cornwall. In 1935, after reading surprising reports of improving prospects on Tyneside, he decided to head home. But Wilson had almost no money, so he and his wife—with their infant daughter—trekked the best part of 600 miles from Penzance back to Tyneside, via London, on foot. It was a horrendous journey, but they did eventually make it, as related in the book:

As Wilson and his family came through Gateshead, they saw on the north side of the river “the grey acres of Newcastle with their familiar spires and steeples and chimney stacks”. And then, after 35 days of suffering, the sight he had longed for: “At last, the great span of the Tyne Bridge—the bridge I helped build—could be seen. I held my breath. We were home.”

Here’s a newspaper clipping showing the Wilson family from the Sunday Sun, 11 August 1935:

Is the name “George Wilson” following me? Maybe. And now I have another story about another George Wilson, involving several of my favourite subjects – football, shipwreck, adventure, survival. This will be George Wilson #6.

Look out for that story arriving in your email inbox next month. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up for free using the link below. And if you know someone who might enjoy a load of George Wilson-related stories (and other stuff) please share this with them.◆

You can hear more about the many George Wilsons in the bonus episode of the Singular Discoveries podcast.

More next time. Please share and subscribe. Thanks for reading.