Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Chesney Wilson (3 August 1865 – 6 November 1914) was a British Army officer and husband of the war correspondent Lady Sarah Wilson. As an Eton College student he assisted in thwarting Roderick Maclean's assassination attempt on Queen Victoria in 1882, before joining the Royal Horse Guards in 1887. Wilson was promoted quickly, and as a captain was appointed aide-de-camp to Robert Baden-Powell at the start of the Boer War, in which role he served through the Siege of Mafeking. He was created a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 1901. During the inter-war years Wilson joined his friend Winston Churchill on a fact-finding trip to East Africa, and then participated in a controversial treasure hunting expedition in Jerusalem. Having been promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1907, when the First World War began in 1914 Wilson took the Royal Horse Guards to the Western Front. Fighting in the First Battle of Ypres, on 6 November 1914 he was shot in the head and killed while repelling a German breakthrough at Kleine Zillebeke.
Early life
Gordon Chesney Wilson was born at the Longerenong homestead, near Horsham, Victoria, in Australia, on 3 August 1865. He was the eldest son of the politician and philanthropist Sir Samuel Wilson and Jean Campbell. The elder Wilson was an ex-miner who had made a fortune as a pastoralist, and the family spent time in both England and Australia. In 1877 Wilson was enrolled at Melbourne Grammar School, but around two years later his family moved to England permanently, and Wilson was sent to Eton College.
On 2 March 1882 Wilson was present with another schoolboy at Windsor railway station when Roderick Maclean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria; the two boys attacked Maclean with their umbrellas and assisted in detaining him. Victoria visited Eton on 6 March to receive an address, and shook their hands in thanks. Some accounts report that Victoria also promised the boys commissions in the British Army. Wilson was one of the witnesses later brought to Maclean's trial. He went on to study at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1885.
Military career
Marriage
Wilson's first military service was as part of the militia. He became a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, on 17 January 1885. He transferred to the 3rd and 4th Battalions, the Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment), on 25 June of the same year. Wilson then joined the regular British Army as a second lieutenant on 4 May 1887, replacing a dead subaltern in the Royal Horse Guards (Blues). He was promoted to lieutenant on 5 December 1888. Soon after this promotion Wilson met Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill, the youngest daughter of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, through her sister Lady Fanny who his parents were friends with. Encouraged by Lady Randolph Churchill, Wilson and Sarah began to court. Ignoring the social disparity between their two families, Wilson proposed to and was accepted by her.
The couple were married on 21 November 1891 by Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at St George's, Hanover Square. The wedding was a star-studded affair that included Edward, Prince of Wales and George, Duke of Cambridge, and was widely publicised. Wilson and Sarah would go on to have two sons; Randolph Gordon Wilson (1893–1956) and Adam Spencer Wilson (1894–1905). Wilson continued in the army after his marriage; despite his relatively lowly position, the historian Brian Roberts writes that the couple "lived like plutocrats". A professional and dedicated soldier, his only interest outside of his career was horseracing; notably one of his horses, Father O'Flynn, won the 1892 Grand National. After the wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck on 6 July 1893, Wilson commanded the Travelling Escort that took the couple to their honeymoon at Sandringham House. He was promoted to captain on 21 November the following year, at the same time as which he is recorded as serving in the Sovereign's Escort.