Patrick Wilkinson (scholar)

Wilkinson died in Cambridge in April 1985, leaving an estate valued at £97,206.

With his friend Robert Bolgar, between 1969 and 1977 Wilkinson organized a series of international conferences at Cambridge with the title "Classical Influences on European Culture". He became Dean of King's College.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Lancelot Patrick Wilkinson (1 June 1907 – 23 April 1985) was an English classical scholar, a don at the University of Cambridge and Dean of King's College.