James Wilson of Woodville FRSE (20 November 1795 – 18 May 1856) was a 19th-century Scottish zoologist.
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Life
Wilson was born at Paisley on 20 November 1795, the youngest son of Margaret Sym and John Wilson (d. 1796), a gauze manufacturer. His father died during his first year, after which the family moved to Edinburgh, where he was educated. In 1811, he began to study for the law at the University of Edinburgh.
Wilson joined the Wernerian Society when we was 17 years old.
In 1816, Wilson visited the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Paris. He later returned to Paris to purchase Louis Dufresne's collection of birds for the museum of the University of Edinburgh; and helped to arrange them. In 1819, he visited Sweden, soon after which symptoms of lung disease appeared, and he resided in Italy during 1820–1821. In 1824, he married Isabella Keith. They lived at Woodburn, Dalkeith near Edinburgh, where he wrote and worked on scientific pursuits. When his wife died in 1837, he took a winter residence in George Square, Edinburgh. He purchased Woodville in south Edinburgh in 1838.
In 1827, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposer being Robert Jameson. From 1850 until his death he was Curator for the Society.