(1781?-Sept. 1807), political figure. Born in North America. Parents: Richard Norton Wilkinson and his wife Amelia Everitt. He was the first law student entered on the books of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Called to the bar in 1801. Practised law in Cornwall. For a short time he was postmaster of Cornwall. On 8 March 1803 he married Cecilia Bethune (d. 1842), the daughter of the Rev. John Bethune. Wilkinson was elected in May 1804 as one of the two representatives for the constituency of GC and Prescott in the Fourth Parliament (met 1805-1808) of Upper Canada. He died at the age of 26, before this parliament ended. He has been described as a Presbyterian. (Johnson) However, he was also a parishioner of the Anglican church in Cornwall, and this may have been true also of his father. (Pringle, Patterson) Walter Butler Wilkinson belonged to the Masonic order.

Scott, i, 34-35 * Johnson 235-236 & index * Pringle, Lunenburgh, 71, 170, 227-228, 257, 312, 317 * Harkness & Senior: index * Armstrong 77, 48 * William John Patterson, Joyful Is Our Praise: Trinity (Bishop Strachan Memorial) Church 1784-1984 (1984) 31, 35, 42-43 * Reid, L, 337 * life in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, VII, 469-473, of John Kirby, who married Wilkinson’s widow