Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1698 until his death in 1755.

The see fell vacant on the death of Baptist Levinz. The mandate for Wilson's induction was issued by John Sharp, Archbishop of York, at Westminster on 20 January 1697, directing the Archdeacon and clergy of the diocese to install him in the real, actual and corporeal possession of the bishopric of the Isle of Man and of Sodor and Man, with its rights, dignities, honours and emoluments. Samuel Wattleworth officiated as Archdeacon at the instalment. The witnesses named include N. Sankey, P. Heywood, L. Christian, Richard Hartley, Henry Norris, John Cosnahan, J. Rowe, John Parr, Daniel McYlrea and Thomas Huddleston. The act was entered in the archives on 13 August 1698 by J. Woods, Registrar.

His largest intervention in Manx affairs was not ecclesiastical. In 1703 he acted between the tenth Earl of Derby and the Island's tenants over the uncertainty of their holdings. His diary for 6 September 1703 records that he had been, he hoped, a happy instrument in bringing the Lord of Man and his people to an agreement, the Earl having that day condescended to settle them on a certain tenure, or rather to restore them to the ancient tenure which had been uncertain for more than a hundred years. In his own history of the Island he set out the case as the tenants made it. They claimed an ancient tenure which they called the tenure of the straw, by which they might leave their estates to posterity under certain rents, fines and services, and the Lord's officers would not allow it because of the breaks made in that manner of holding by leases. Commissioners were appointed to treat with the people in the Earl's presence, and the outcome was the Act of Settlement.

He also preached before the Tynwald Court in 1736, at the first Tynwald held by James, second Duke of Atholl, and that sermon was printed by the Manx Society in the same volume as the account of the Duke's entry.

In 1751 he wrote to congratulate the new governor on his arrival, and in 1753 he consecrated a new chapel at Ramsey, where his son preached the sermon. He kept an open table, and his kitchen was crowded with the poor and the needy. One nineteenth-century account records that he never interfered in temporal or political matters unless the inhabitants particularly called on him to serve them. Philip Moore, later Rector of Kirk Bride, was among those whose education was completed under him. His son, the Rev. Dr Wilson, was rector of St Stephen's Walbrook and prebendary of Westminster, and was buried there after dying at Bath.