 His daughter Helen Mary Wilson was a physician and social campaigner, and first woman magistrate in Sheffield.Wilson began working life as a farmer near Mansfield and in 1867, after fourteen years as tenant of Newlands Farm, he went to Sheffield to manage the family firm, the Sheffield Smelting Company of which he also became a director.Wilson's political interests were born of the radical and dissenting tradition he inherited from his father and the Wilson family's Victorian dedication to public service and devotion to civic duty.