Sir Roland Knyvet Wilson (27 August, 1840 - 29 October, 1919) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 academic and political writer.

Wilson was educated at Eton

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

. In 1867 he was a barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 and then ventured into journalism, working for the Weekly Reporter and Law Journal from 1867 to 1871. He was a reader in Indian Law at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 from 1878 to 1892.

Wilson's history of English law impressed A. V. Dicey

A. V. Dicey

- References :...

 due to its documenting the distinction between Blackstonian

William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone KC SL was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke...

 and Benthamite

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

 phases of law reform. Wilson was a classical liberal involved in the Personal Rights Association

Personal Rights Association

The body which became the Personal Rights Association was founded in England in 1871. The 1913 Annual Report of the PRA records that 'On the 14th March, 1871, a meeting largely attended by sympathisers from various parts of England, was held in Manchester, to consider the possibility of forming a...

, an organisation which grew out of opposition to the Contagious Diseases Acts

Contagious Diseases Acts

The Contagious Diseases Acts were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864, with further alterations and editions made to it in 1866 and 1869. In 1862, a committee was established to inquire into venereal disease in the armed forces; on its recommendation the first...

, and his The Province of the State examined legitimate areas of concern for the state.

Publications

• A Short History of Modern English Law (Rivington's Historical Handbooks) (1874).
• An annotated edition of Sir G. C. Lewis' Use and Abuse of Political Terms (1877).
• An Introduction to the Study of Anglo-Muhammadan Law (1894).
• A Digest of Anglo-Muhammadan Law (1895, 4th edition 1912).
• The Province of the State (1911).
• Individualism and the Land Question: a Discussion (1912).
• The First and Last Fight for the Voluntary Principle in Education (1846-1858) (1915).