 Wilkinson entered a partnership with Ferdinand Hirschfeld, and made a specialty manufacturing patented candles with compressed tallow for fuel in order to prevent sputtering and metal wicks to avoid need for snuffing, but these were marketed unsuccessfully.Hirschfeld and Wilkinson, wax chandlers, and oil and spermaceti refiners, at Windsor Terrace, City Road were listed bankrupt 31 July 1835.In 1854 he left London for Milford Haven avoiding the outbreak of cholera, and died there of a stroke in 1855.