James Wilson

Sir James Wilson, (27 February 1853 – 22 September 1926) was a British civil servant in British India, where he spent most of his career in the Punjab. After his return to the United Kingdom he was a senior civil servant under the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, representing the country at the International Institute of Agriculture. He was also an author of books on dialects and folklore, in India and in Scotland. Career Wilson was born in 1853, the son of Rev. John Wilson, DD, minister and historian of Dunning, Perthshire. He was educated at Perth Academy, the University of Edinburgh and at Balliol College, Oxford. He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1873, and arrived in India in November 1875 to take up the position of assistant commissioner and settlement officer in Punjab Province, where he stayed for most of his career in India. He officiated as under secretary to the government of Punjab in 1881 and 1884, and as senior financial secretary to the financial commissioned in 1885 and 1886. Appointed deputy commissioner in September 1890, he served as settlement commissioner from November 1899. He was from 1903 to 1908 Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Revenue and Agriculture (having officiated as such earlier), and in early 1908 took second place to the lieutenant-governor in his old province, when he was appointed Financial Commissioner of the Punjab. It was in this post that he conceived the idea of the Triple Canal Irrigation project, which he lived to see adding enormously to the economic wealth of the province. He retired from the Indian Civil Service in late 1910. In January 1900 he was appointed a Member of the Council of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, staying as such until 1910.