James John Garth Wilkinson

Life

The son of James John Wilkinson (died 1845), a writer on mercantile law and judge of the County Palatine of Durham, he was born in London. Wilkinson studied medicine and worked at Newcastle Infirmary and Guy's Hospital. He was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1834. He became an independent medical practitioner at Store Street, Bedford Square in 1835. However, he became disillusioned with orthodox medicine and later took up homeopathy.

Attracted by the works of William Blake, he studied the Songs of Experience. He was also inspired by Emanuel Swedenborg, to the elucidation of whose writings he devoted much of his life.

He died at Finchley Road, South Hampstead, where he had lived for nearly fifty years. He was commemorated by a bust and portrait in the rooms of the Swedenborgian Society in Bloomsbury Street, London.