Ronald Wilson (1922-2005) was born in Geraldton, Western Australia. His mother died when Ronald was 4 and he and his brother were mostly cared for by a housekeeper. Then when Ronald was 7, his father suffered a debilating stroke and spent the remaining 5 years of his life in hospice care.

Ronald's older brother, then 14, began caring for the boy, along with the housekeeper. He enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1941 and then served in RAAF until 1946. Wilson graduated with a Bachelor of Law from the University of Western Australian in 1949, then studied for a Master in Law from the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson had a ten-year term as the Western Australian Solicitor-General and in 1979 became the first Western Australian to be appointed to the High Court of Australia.

Amongst other publications, Sir Ronald Wilson is co-author (with Mick Dodson) of the hugely significant Bringing Them Home Report (1997), a report of the findings from the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families.