(1721 - 1788)
Benjamin Wilson was born in Leeds. He achieved some success as a portrait painter both in Dublin, where he practised from 1748 to 1750, and subsequently in England where, in the 1750s, he was considered by some to be a rival to the young Reynolds. Wilson's overriding interest, however, was in the field of science; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and, after 1769 until his death in 1788, seems to have given up art altogether to pursue scientific interests. He devoted himself particularly to the study of the efficiency of lightning conductors.
