Colin Wilcockson

Colin Wilcockson (23 July 1932 – 1 March 2023) was a British medievalist and literary scholar.

Biography Born in Leytonstone and raised in Loughton, Essex, Wilcockson attended Chigwell School, where he was head boy and later served as a governor. He studied English as a choral exhibitioner at Merton College, Oxford.

Wilcockson taught initially at Campbell College, Belfast, before becoming head of English at The Leys School in Cambridge in 1959. His academic contributions included scholarly editions of medieval works such as William Langland's Piers Plowman, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess (in The Riverside Chaucer), and a selection of The Canterbury Tales for Penguin Classics.

Wilcockson was a three-time recipient of Cambridge University's Seatonian Prize, awarded for poetry on sacred subjects. He participated actively in outreach efforts aimed at broadening university access and supported Pembroke College's transition to co-education during the 1980s.

In later years, Wilcockson taught courses in Cologne, Ghana, and at Pembroke College summer schools.