The Wilson Memorial Lecture is an annual lecture established by the RCML Executive Committee as a result of a memorial fund instituted by Dr. Wilson's family. John Warner Wilson, a founding member, was in attendance at the annual Conference being held in Tampa at the time of his death. Dr. Wilson was on the Faculty of the University of Maryland from 1969 until his death in 1979. He was Director of the Arithmetic Clinic and Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Wilson held a liberal arts degree from Bowling Green State University, a masters degree in epistimology from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Education from Syracuse. After service in the Army, he became a kindergarten and later a second grade teacher on the Onadauga Indian Reservation in New York State. In the early 1960's he directed the country's first arithmetic clinic. That clinic was begun by Dr. Vincent Glennon for the diagnostic study and treatment of learning problems in mathematics.

Previous Wilson lecturers have included, among others,  Vincent Glennon, David Berliner, Lauren Resnick, Paul Cobb, Richard Duran, Honorable Walter Komanski, Thom Alcoze, John Bransford, Johnny Lott, Frosty Troy, Robert Slavin, Daniel Leeson, Karl Schaffer, Alan Jones and Thad Stamer.