Walter Wilson’s medals
Two medals recently donated to Dorset’s Tank Museum belonged to the man without whom the tank might never have existed.
Walter Gordon Wilson possessed the creative mind that led to the tracks of the first tanks running right around their distinctive rhomboid shape.
Walter Wilson
It is remarkable that his medals have ended up at the museum because they were stolen many years ago.
But recently they emerged and Walter’s grandson, Brigadier Henry Wilson, took possession of them and made the donation.
Walter Wilson’s grandson, Brigadier Henry Wilson
They are now on display along with the very early tanks that Wilson was responsible for helping design.
When Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty during WWI pushed for ‘landships’ to be created, Wilson was put in charge of testing.
With William Tritton of the agricultural manufacturing firm Fosters of Lincoln, he worked to create what would become known as the tank.
He is credited with inventing numerous key features, notably the track design for the test vehicle Little Willie, now on display at the museum.
Tank Museum curator David Willey with Little Willie.
He also invented Little Willie’s rhomboid successor ‘Mother’ with the tracks running around the whole vehicle.
Later he improved the gear system in the Mark V tanks so a single operator could drive them, rather than a team of four as with earlier designs.
Tanks would enter the fray in WWI on September 15, 1916, and would become a vital weapon in the allies’ victory.
David Willey, curator of The Tank Museum, with a Mark I tank.
Reflecting their leading role, Walter Wilson and his partner Sir William Tritton jointly received the largest financial award from the post-Great War Royal Commission for Inventors for their work on the tank.
The donated medals are the War Medal – awarded to all those who served in WWI – and the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG).
The CMG was awarded in June 1917 in recognition of Wilson’s contribution to the war effort.
The fact that Wilson was the only leading player not to receive a knighthood or higher honour may well have something to do with his uncompromising character.
David Willey, curator of the museum, said: “These medals might be modest in one sense, but they are of great significance and importance to us because of whose they were.
“Without Wilson’s drive, creative mind and problem-solving skills the story of what became known as the tank might have been very different.
“It is extremely generous of the family to donate the medals which will help us tell the story of how the ‘landships’ were turned from an idea into reality.”
Brigadier Henry Wilson, grandson of the inventor, said: “My grandfather’s medals had been missing since stolen in 1954 so it was fortunate that I heard they were being put up for sale.
“Thanks to the vendor’s cooperation the medals were returned to the family.
“Due to Walter’s pioneering role in the invention of the tank, I felt that the Tank Museum was the appropriate home for them so we decided to donate them.
“My grandfather, after a brief early spell in the Royal Navy, studied mechanical science at King’s College, Cambridge.
“Always an innovative thinker, he became involved with early powered flight before building his own motor cars, the Wilson-Pilcher, from 1901 to 1904. He then worked on designing commercial vehicles for Armstrong-Whitworth before his leading wartime role in the tank story.”
Wilson was born in Ireland in1874. At Cambridge he met Charles Rolls – of Rolls-Royce fame – and acted as his mechanical engineer on several occasions.
He teamed up with Percy Sinclair Pilcher, a glider pioneer, and designed and built a lightweight engine for Pilcher’s new triplane named The Hawk.
Tragically Pilcher died in a crash at Stanford Hall near Rugby on 30 September 1899 before the engine could be fitted.
Had this not happened and the venture had succeeded, as experts believe it would have, they would have achieved powered flight five years before the Wright brothers.
One example of the Wilson-Pilcher veteran car remains in private hands today participating regularly in the London-Brighton run.
After The Great War Wilson patented the epicyclic pre-selector gearbox which was built by the family firm Self-Changing Gears Ltd at Coventry for over 40 years.
Walter Wilson died in 1957.
ends
