Pembroke College Cambridge

Colin Wilcockson (1932 – 2023)

Colin Wilcockson

Pembroke regrets to announce that Colin Wilcockson has died aged 90.

Over his 50 years at Pembroke, Colin introduced several generations of students to the delights of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literature. Even if they chose to move on to the study of more modern eras, generations of English students fondly remember Colin, his warmth and kindness, and his enthusiasm for Chaucer, Langland and Gower. Indeed, he corresponded with many of them long after graduation. As a teacher, his passion for great literature, his capacity to be moved by it, was one of his greatest gifts. 

Educated at Chigwell School and Merton College, Oxford, Colin started supervising for Pembroke while Head of English and Deputy Headmaster at The Leys School in Cambridge. He was admitted as an official Fellow of the College in 1973.

Over the years, Colin served Pembroke in many roles. He was a College Lecturer, Director of Studies in English, and later Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Admissions Tutor (and at a time just after the Admission of women to Pembroke, when the relationships he cultivated with many schools did so much to attract applications from the first generations of Pembroke women) and Assistant Tutor. Although Colin retired as a Fellow in 1999, he continued to supervise students and acted as the editor of the 'Gossip' pages in the Martlet.

Colin published books, articles and reviews mainly on Medieval and Renaissance literature and was one of the editors of the Riverside Chaucer.

He also had a keen interest in Welsh literature and, in September 1998, took up a lectureship in the Department of Welsh Literature at the University of Cardiff.

He wrote several essays about the Anglo-Welsh artist and poet David Jones. Jones fought in WW1 and wrote about his experience in the epic poem In Parenthesis. Colin met Jones in 1955 and kept up a friendship with him until Jones died in 1974. In December 2022, Colin kindly donated David Jones’s extraordinary correspondence to the College Library.

Colin was also a fine poet, and had the unusual distinction of being a four-time winner of the Seatonian Prize, which the University of Cambridge awards for the best poem in English on a sacred subject. Following in the footsteps of fellow Pembroke poet Christopher Smart, Colin won in 1995, 2009, 2016 and 2018.

The Master of Pembroke, Lord Smith, reflected: ‘Colin was one of the most warm-hearted and wonderful people I’ve known. He was the first supervisor I ever had, in my first year as a Pembroke English student, and he was an inspirational teacher. Learned, and wise, and with a passion for his subject. And always with a twinkle in his eye. He is such a loss to us all.’

Fellow in English Mark Wormald said: ‘I was lucky enough to count Colin as a dear friend as well as a wonderful colleague. When I saw him at home surrounded by his family some weeks ago, he was still the inimitable sparkling Colin so many of us have grown to love and respect. I will miss him very much.’

In the summer months, come rain or shine, he could often be found after lunch on the Bowling Green with Professor Michael Powell (1936 – 2015). Their languid games of bowls often sent students - who had opportunistically come too far down the banks of the Bowling Green - scattering.

The College’s thoughts are with Colin’s widow Pam, their three sons, Michael, Nigel and David, and the wider Wilcockson family.

Further information about a service of memorial and thanksgiving for the life and career of Colin Wilcockson to be held in Pembroke Chapel will be circulated in due course.

Colin reflects on his experiences of teaching students who attended Pembroke on International Programmes’ courses.

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