John Wilson (historian)
John Wilson (8 June 1799 – 22 January 1870) was a British writer and supporter of British Israelism. He was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, and was self-educated.
In 1840 he published Our Israelitish Origin, a book based on his lectures. He argued that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel traveled from the Near East across Europe and eventually settled in the British Isles. He believed Northern Europeans were descended from these tribes and that the British people came from the Tribe of Ephraim. Wilson used linguistic comparisons between English, Scottish, and Irish words and Hebrew to support his ideas, though he had no formal training in language studies.
The Anglo-Israel Association was founded in his house in St Pancras, London, in 1874. After his daughter’s death in 1904, his manuscripts passed to Rev. A. B. Grimaldi. Wilson died in Brighton, England, at age 70.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:37 (CET).