Wilkinson was educated at
Charterhouse School and
King's College, Cambridge, and not long after graduating was elected as a fellow of his college. In 1938, F. E. Adcock introduced Wilkinson to
Alastair Denniston, head of the
Government Code and Cypher School, and when Britain declared war on Germany in October 1939, Wilkinson was one of the first new recruits to GC&CS, together with another Cambridge man,
Harry Hinsley. When seeking to recruit more suitably advanced linguists,
John Tiltman turned to Wilkinson for advice, and he suggested asking
Lord Lindsay of Birker, of
Balliol College, Oxford, S. W. Grose, and
Martin Charlesworth, of
St John's College, Cambridge, to recommend classical scholars or applicants to their colleges. Until 1943, Wilkinson worked in the Italian naval subsection. In March 1943, after the success of
Operation Torch, he was posted to
Algiers in
French North Africa, and then to
Malta, where he worked in the
Lascaris Battery. After the war, Wilkinson returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of King's College and was also Reader in Latin Literature in the university. His major publications include
Horace and his Lyric Poetry and
The Georgics of Virgil. He published a memoir of
Sir John Sheppard. A reviewer said of his
Ovid Recalled (1955) "Mr Wilkinson’s approach is almost unfashionable. It is purely literary; he offers no glittering fantasies or jerks of invention, but is content to let Ovid be his own interpreter." In 1963, Wilkinson wrote the
libretto in
Latin for
Benjamin Britten’s
Cantata Misericordium, having been suggested to Britten by
L. P. Hartley, who was also a fellow of King's. With his friend
Robert Bolgar, between 1969 and 1977 Wilkinson organised a series of international conferences at Cambridge with the title "Classical Influences on European Culture". He became Dean of King's College. ==Selected publications==