William Wilson
William Wilson (1715-1795) joined the East India Company as a fourteen-year-old midshipman and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming captain of the Suffolk, which traded between England and China via India.
On his last voyage in the Suffolk, Wilson led a three-ship convoy from China that fought off an attack by two French frigates of the Cape of Good Hope.
While Wilson could have retired, he accepted the command of a captured fifty-gun French ship, renamed the Pitt, and the post of the Company's Commodore in eastern waters.
Wilson's voyage to establish a new route to China that avoided the Malacca and Sunda Straits coincided with Alexander Dalrymple's Cuddalore voyage.
After retiring from the sea, Wilson turned his attention to his estate at Ayton Hall, where his innovative farming methods attracted the attention of England's leading agricultural writer.
