Death
In early 2007 emergency surgery was performed to remove one of his kidneys. This forced the postponement of plans to create a southern hemisphere version of the In The City festival. Despite the surgery, the cancer progressed and a course of chemotherapy was not effective. Wilson died of a heart attack in Manchester's Christie Hospital on 10 August 2007 aged 57. Following the news of his death, the Union Flag on Manchester Town Hall was lowered to half mast as a mark of respect. As with everything else in the Factory empire, Tony Wilson's coffin was also given a Factory catalogue number - FAC 501. He is buried at the Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. His black granite headstone, erected in October 2010, was designed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly of Factory Records and features a quotation, chosen by Wilson's family, from G Linnaeus Banks's 1876 novel The Manchester Man, set in Rotis serif font. The quotation reads: "Mutability is the epitaph of worlds/ Change alone is changeless/ People drop out of the history of a life as of a land though their work or their influence remains."
Probate documents reveal his estate was valued at £484,747 after tax. That figure includes the value of his city centre apartment on Little Peter Street. The will, signed by Wilson on 4 July 2007, gave Yvette Livesey, 39, his girlfriend of 17 years, the proceeds from their home. He also left her his share of six businesses. His son Oliver and daughter Isabel share the rest of his estate.
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