Francis Gilson was a member of a large footballing family, including father James senior, brother James and half-brother Harry Younger.
Gilson was born in Ipswich, where his father co-owned the James Gilson and James Rumble pottery and he lived there until the family moved to Kleinton in Toowoomba in 1907. Here several members of the family worked for the Braziers pottery, while his father was also a member of the committee which ran the Kleinton Rovers soccer club. Gilson played for Kleinton Rovers from 1909 until 1911 alongside several brothers, then the City Club in 1912 before the family moved to Goodna.
Their connection to Toowoomba football remained through the Gilson Cup, the premiership trophy of the B division, which was contested in 1914. There is no evidence Gilson played soccer on his return to the Ipswich region before his enlistment in November 1914.
He was sent to Gallipoli with the 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance, but he soon noticed a pain in his right ear combined with what a later medical report stated was a purulent discharge. The discharges would continue over the next two years until he was discharged as medically unfit due to deafness in his right ear, and partial deafness in his left. Despite his initial ear troubles, Gilson was not evacuated to Egypt via Malta until November 1915 when he suffered conjunctivitis. A month later he suffered the first of several bouts of malaria, which he would suffer over the two years. Gilson continued his service as a driver in Egypt until late 1918 when he was employed to assist returning troops on a transport ship back to Australia.
Gilson and his brother James and half-brother Harry were added to the Toowoomba Brisbane Football Association honour board in 1918. Gilson became a golfer after the war, winning the 1927 AIF Cup in Brisbane, a competition inaugurated a year earlier for ex-servicemen. He passed away in 1971.