Wilson was born on 19 May 1899 at 15 Station Road in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.His father, George William Wilson was a railway clerk. His paternal aunt Elizabeth was a music teacher. He attended
Berkhamsted School before winning a scholarship to the
Royal College of Music in 1915, aged 15. His teachers included
Charles Villiers Stanford (composition) and
Adrian Boult (conducting). He met his wife S. Dorothy Thuell at the RCM where she was an accomplished cellist. Thuell attended the Royal College of Music in 1913 from the age of 16, having won the Lesley Alexander Gift. She was also a Wilson, and Dove Scholar. Thuell, along with Hilda M. Klein and Nancy F. Phillips, gave the first performance of Wilson's
Trio for Piano and Strings in E flat in November 1916. In March 1917 she gave the first performance of his
String Quartet in A minor with Phillips, Harry Cantor and Sybil Maturin on viola. In 1917 Wilson left to serve in the war, returning to the college a year later. In the first of a series of RCM festival concerts in July 1919 to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the ‘new’ college building, Wilson conducted his own
Scherzo for Orchestra. Other composers featured on the festival programme were
Butterworth,
Parry,
Bridge,
Vaughan Williams and Stanford.
Edgar Bainton,
Charles Wood, Stanford and Bridge also conducted their own compositions, with Adrian Boult conducting the works by Butterworth and Vaughan Williams. That same year, Wilson and Thuell gave the first performance of his
Sonata for Violoncello and Pianoforte in a college concert. He also conducted his
Serenade for Orchestra in July 1919. Other early works performed at the RCM were his
Three Rhapsodies for String Quartet op.13, performed at a college concert in June of 1921. He married Dorothy Thuell that summer on August 8th. From 1921 to 1945 he was the Music Master at
Ipswich Grammar School, and conductor of the Ipswich Philharmonic Society. From 1945 he was Director of Music at
Dulwich College, succeeding Arthur Gayford, a post he held for the rest of his life. In 1937, his
Double Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, with
Albert Sammons and
Bernard Shore was played at the B.B.C. with Wilson conducting the BBCSO. At Dulwich, Stanley Wilson set up a close association with the
Royal Festival Hall, and 400 boys from the school participated in the Hall's opening celebrations in 1951. In 1953 he prepared the school choir to sing in a recording by Philips of the
Berlioz Te Deum under
Sir Thomas Beecham, but died suddenly the evening before the performance. The clarinetist
Alan Hacker and composer
Anthony Payne were pupils at Dulwich College under Wilson. ==Compositions==