Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson, 3rd Baronet, VC, GCB, OM, GCVO (4 March 1842 – 25 May 1921) was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War and then the Mahdist War being awarded the Victoria Cross during the Battle of El Teb in February 1884. He went on to command a battleship, the torpedo school HMS Vernon and then another battleship before taking charge of the Experimental Torpedo Squadron. He later commanded the Channel Fleet. He briefly served as First Sea Lord but in that role he "was abrasive, inarticulate, and autocratic" and was really only selected as Admiral Sir John Fisher's successor because he was a supporter of Fisher's reforms. Wilson survived for even less time than was intended by the stop-gap nature of his appointment because of his opposition to the establishment of a Naval Staff. Appointed an advisor at the start of World War I, he advocated offensive schemes in the North Sea including the capture of Heligoland and was an early proponent of the development and use of submarines in the Royal Navy.

Born the son of Rear Admiral George Knyvet Wilson and Agnes Mary Wilson (née Yonge), Wilson was educated at Eton College before he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman aboard the second-rate HMS Algiers in 1855. He was present at the Battle of Kinburn in October 1855 during the Crimean War. He was transferred to fourth-rate HMS Raleigh on the China Station in September 1856 and then, following the loss of the Raleigh near Hong Kong, transferred to the second-rate HMS Calcutta and saw action in command of a gun in the naval brigade at the Battle of Canton in December 1857 and then at the Battle of Taku Forts in May 1858 during the Second Opium War. He was appointed to the steam frigate HMS Topaze on the Pacific Station in September 1859 and was promoted to lieutenant on 11 December 1861. After a tour in the steam frigate HMS Gladiator, he joined the gunnery school HMS Excellent at Portsmouth in April 1865. He became an instructor at the new Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Yokohama in Japan in May 1867 and then at the new training ship HMS Britannia in January 1869.

Wilson became a member of the committee investigating the effectiveness of the Whitehead torpedo and was involved in its trials in 1870. He became gunnery officer in the training ship HMS Caledonia in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1871 and first lieutenant in the steam frigate HMS Narcissus in October 1872. Promoted to commander on 18 September 1873, he became second-in-command in the new steam frigate HMS Raleigh in January 1874.

In 1876 Wilson became commander and chief of staff at the new torpedo school HMS Vernon, where his duties included rewriting torpedo manuals, inventing aiming apparatus and developing mine warfare.

Promoted to captain on 20 April 1880, Wilson was appointed to command the torpedo boat depot ship HMS Hecla. In the summer of 1882 he was ordered to take the Hecla to Egypt to deliver ammunition for British troops taking part in the Anglo-Egyptian War; on arrival, working with Captain John Fisher, he installed a heavy gun on a railway carriage and created an improvised armoured train. He was awarded the Ottoman Empire Order of the Medjidie, 3rd Class on 12 January 1883.

Early in 1884 the Hecla was sent to Trinkitat on the Red Sea coast of Sudan to support British troops defending Suakin during the Mahdist War. Wilson attached himself to the Naval Brigade and the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC:

On 29 February 1884, at the Battle of El Teb, Captain Wilson of HMS Hecla attached himself, during the advance, to the right half-battery, Naval Brigade, in place of a lieutenant who was mortally wounded. As the troops closed on the enemy battery, the Arabs charged out on the detachment which was dragging one of the guns, whereupon Captain Wilson sprang to the front and engaged in single combat with some of the enemy, and so protected the detachment until men of the 1st Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, came to his assistance.

Wilson became Flag Captain to the Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope Station and Captain of the Raleigh in March 1886. He went on to be assistant director of Torpedoes at the Admiralty in April 1887 and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 21 June 1887. He went on to be Captain of Vernon in 1889 and Captain of the battleship HMS Sans Pareil in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1892. He was appointed Naval Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria on 14 February 1892. In the Sans Pareil he was briefly Flag Captain to the Commander in Chief, Mediterranean Fleet in late 1893. Promoted to rear-admiral on 22 June 1895, he was given command of the experimental torpedo squadron, hoisting his flag in the cruiser HMS Hermione before becoming Second-in-Command of the Reserve Fleet in 1896. He became Third Naval Lord and Controller of the Navy in August 1897 and Senior Officer in Command of the Channel Squadron in March 1901, hoisting his flag in the battleship HMS Majestic upon taking command in April 1901. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 24 May 1901, and advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902, following which he was knighted and received the insignia in an investiture on board the royal yacht Victoria and Albert outside Cowes on 15 August 1902, the day before the fleet review held there to mark the coronation. Wilson took part in the review with the Majestic.