Laurence William Wilson was a Dunedin artist, who was trained in England, his place of birth. His birth is recorded at Westminster, 5 November 1851, the son of Edward Brown Wilson, civil engineer, and Mary Jane Wilson. He came to New Zealand by 1877, when he was recorded in Auckland; in Oamaru by 1878; may have bought a farm in Canterbury; in Dunedin by 1884. He painted in oils and watercolours and taught art in Dunedin. In 1904, he left Dunedin for Melbourne and eventually returned to England.