| Biography | Wilkinson was born in Manchester in 1870 and was educated at an elementary school, and then a technical institute before he joined a Manchester firm of photographic chemists. In 1895 he transferred his services to an Edinburgh company where he first learned how to operate a cinema projector. In 1898 he came to London to pursue a journalistic career, a move that might have been connected with his marriage in September 1897. For a time he worked in the advertising section of the Photographic Dealer, where his considerable knowledge of chemical and photographic apparatus attracted the attention of pioneer film producer Cecil Hepworth, who had made his first film in the very year that Wilkinson came to London. Hepworth went on to become a close professional associate and personal friend of Wilkson. Hepworth proved instrumental in Wilkinson's appointment to the secretaryship of the Kinematograph Manufacturers Association in 1909 and then of the BBFC in 1912. He was the Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors from 1912 to 1948 (died in office).
Wilkson had purchased Crtlisle House (built in 1670 by Sir Christopher Wren) and the BBFC permises from autum 1936 until its destruction on 10-11 May 1941. He had the building refurnished and equiped for the BBFC, selling it to the Board for the price he paid despite interim higher offers. |