Henry Joseph Wilson. Source: Picture Sheffield.
Henry J Wilson, born in Nottinghamshire in 1833, grew up in an intensely Congregationalist household. His parents were nonconformist radicals; his father was the chair of the Nottingham Anti-Slavery committee and his aunt was the ardent Sheffield anti-slavery campaigner Mary Anne Rawson. Wilson began his working life as a farmer near Mansfield and moved to Sheffield in 1866 to join his brother John Wycliffe Wilson in reviving the Sheffield Smelting Company. They diversified into standard silver with great success.
H J Wilson was a passionate Liberal who fought for many nonconformist causes such as Temperance, placing a notice outside his house inviting people to sign the pledge. He did much to build up Sheffield’s schools, helped to found Sheffield High School for Girls, but bitterly opposed state support for Anglican and Roman Catholic schools and refused to pay local rates. Wilson and his wife Charlotte joined the fight against the Contagious Diseases Act and campaigned for more humane treatment of prostitutes.
In 1873 Wilson and his supporters formed the Sheffield Reform Association with the aim of promoting a more radical Liberal voice in the town. In 1875 he became Secretary of the Sheffield Liberal Association and he was selected to stand as Liberal candidate for Holmfirth in the 1885 General Election. Wilson was MP for Holmfirth from 1885 to 1912, sided with Gladstone over Home Rule for Ireland, was anti-imperialist, attacked the opium trade in India and was a ‘pro-Boer’, a stance which was unpopular in Sheffield at that time.