Charles Henry Wellesley Wilson, 2nd Baron Nunburnholme (24 January 1875 – 15 August 1924), was a British peer, and one of the heirs to the Thomas Wilson Sons & Co., a Hull-based shipping company that built a near-monopoly over affordable travel packages from Scandinavia and the Baltic. He was an officer in the Volunteers and saw active service in the Second Boer War and World War I. During the later war he was distinguished for the number of new units that he recruited for the war effort, notably the "Hull Pals".
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Biography
He was born in Cottingham, the eldest son of Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Nunburnholme (1833–1907), who with his brother Arthur were joint managers of the firm founded by their father Thomas. The company had been managed by a non-family managing director since 1901, and was sold in 1916. His mother, Florence Jane Helen Wellesley, was a great-niece of the Duke of Wellington. Young Charles was educated at Eton.
Military career
Wilson was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the part-time 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment on 2 December 1893, transferring to the Yorkshire Hussars on 5 September 1894. He resigned his commission on 1 February 1895, but was re-commissioned into the 2nd Volunteer Bn of the East Yorkshires on 4 March 1896, this time as a captain.
Boer War
After the outbreak of the Second Boer War in October 1899, a corps of imperial volunteers from London was formed in late December 1899. The corps included infantry, mounted infantry and artillery divisions and was authorized with the name City of London Imperial Volunteers. It proceeded to South Africa in January 1900, returned in October the same year, and was disbanded in December 1900. Wilson was appointed a lieutenant of the mounted infantry division on 3 January 1900, with the temporary rank of Lieutenant in the Army, and served as such until the corps was disbanded. He was present at the Relief of Kimberley and operations in the Orange Free State from February to May 1900, including actions at Karee Siding, Vet River (5 & 6 May), Zand River. He was in the operations in the Transvaal in May and June, including actions near Johannesburg, Pretoria and Diamond Hill (11 June). He was again in the Transvaal, west of Pretoria, from July to 29 November, including actions at Zilikats Nek and Blands River (4–16 August), and operations in Orange River Colony in July. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Mentioned in dispatches, and received the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps. He was granted the honorary rank of lieutenant in the army.
He ended his Volunteer career as a major in the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment. He did not transfer with the battalion when the Volunteers were subsumed into the Territorial Force (TF) in 1908 (by then he was in Parliament first as an MP, then as a peer), but as Lord-Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire (appointed 24 November 1908), Nunburnholme became ex officio President of the York (East Riding) Territorial Force Association, which was responsible for administering all the TF units in the county.
World War I
On 6 August 1914, less than 48 hours after Britain's declaration of war, Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men for the Regular Army, and on 11 August the newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'. The flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the army to absorb and organise them, and by the time the K5 units came into existence many of them were being organised as 'Pals battalions' under the auspices of mayors and corporations of towns up and down the country.
On 29 August Nunburnholme had a meeting with Kitchener at the War Office (WO), at which he and the East Riding Territorial Force Association (ERTFA) were authorised to raise a local battalion in Hull. This was unusual because most of the county TFAs were fully engaged with recruiting and equipping their existing TF units and had no time for the New Army units (in March 1915 the War Office had politely to ask the TFAs to become involved in recruiting them.) The Hull Daily Mail of 31 August 1914 carried Nunburnholme's proposal to raise a 'Commercial Battalion' from men working in business offices in Hull who would serve alongside their friends. Recruitment opened the following day at Wenlock Barracks on Anlaby Road, loaned by the ERTFA, and 200 men were attested on the first day. Some came en masse, such as groups from Reckitt and Sons' chemical works and the North Eastern Railway Dock Superintendents' office. The battalion reached its full establishment (just over 1000 men) on 5 September, and recruiting immediately began for a 2nd Hull Battalion, 'The Tradesmen'. Wenlock Barracks and the peacetime Army Recruiting Office at Pryme Street were inadequate for the surge of volunteers from all over the East Riding, so Nunburnholme borrowed Hull City Hall and opened it on 6 September as the Central Hull Recruiting Office for all the units being raised in the city.
On 7 September, the WO not only authorised Nunburnholme and the ERTFA to raise the 2nd Hull battalion, but also a heavy battery (1st Hull) and associated ammunition column of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA), many of whose recruits came from the shipyards associated with the Wilson shipping line and was temporarily commanded by one of its ships' captains.
The "Tradesmen's" battalion was completed within three days, and Nunburnholme immediately began raising a 3rd Hull Battalion: the 'Sportsmen'. The Hon Stanley Jackson, the former England cricket captain, was the chief speaker at a public meeting held at the Park Street Artillery Barracks on 12 September to raise recruits for this battalion, which reached full strength in October, including many men from Hull Docks. Lord Nunburnholme organised a second recruiting campaign in Hull in November, which raised a further 894 men for the 4th Hull Battalion which took any able-bodied recruits, regardless of background, and for want of a better name was known in the Yorkshire vernacular as "T'others".
Political career
Wilson held the ceremonial position of Sheriff of Hull in 1899 and 1900. He was elected at the 1906 general election as Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull West, succeeding his father who had held the seat since 1885. Charles Sr. was ennobled as Baron Nunburnholme when he left the House of Commons. When he died in 1907, Charles Jr. inherited the Barony, after only a year in the House of Commons, forcing a by-election at which his younger brother Guy Wilson was elected in his place.
Lord Nunburnholme was Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire from 1908 to 1924.
Family
Wilson married, on 12 February 1901, Lady Marjorie Wynn-Carrington, DStJ, eldest daughter of the Marquess of Lincolnshire. Lady Nunburnholme was active in organising the opening of the Hull Naval Hospital in World War I. She died on 17 June 1968.
They had three children: Monica, Charles and David. Monica, who married Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton, died 9 November 1974. Charles became, upon his father's death in August 1924, 3rd Baron Nunburnholme. David served as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and was killed in action on 23 March 1941.
Lord Nunburnholme died in Leeds on 15 August 1924 and was buried at Warter, East Yorkshire.