High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Edward Adrian Wilson ("Uncle Bill") (23 July 1872 29 March 1912) was a notable English polar explorer, physician, naturalist, painter and ornithologist. Born in Montpellier Terrace, Cheltenham on 23 July 1872, Wilson was the second son and fifth child of physician Dr Edward Thomas Wilson (1832-1918) and his wife, Mary Agnes, née Whishaw (1841-1930). A clever, sensitive, but boisterous boy, he developed a love of the countryside, natural history and drawing from an early age. He was sent as a boarder to a Preparatory School in Clifton, Bristol, but after failing to gain a scholarship to Public School, he attended Cheltenham College for Boys as a day pupil.