Life Stories
David George Wilkinson
David George Wilkinson (1967 BPhil Philosophy) died in February 2026 aged 76.
From a naval family in Portsmouth, David turned down a scholarship to naval college to come to Keble in 1967, where he read PPE, and was involved in student politics with figures such as Tariq Ali and Christopher Hitchens. He stayed for the new International Relations BPhil, teaching for a while at Queen Elizabeth House.
He took a Thompson journalism training course, was a reporter on the South Wales Echo (sharing a desk with novelist Ken Follett), and then moved across to the Central Office of Information. While there, he met wife-to-be Kathryn through their shared love of walking and the outdoors. Together they would raise their son Tom, and see the length and breadth of the country in various vans in their fifty years together.
He taught at Hatfield Polytechnic and then moved across to the Institute for European Environmental Policy, working on the preparations for the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s, and for Eastern European Countries’ accession to the EU in 2004.
That led to visiting fellowships at the College of Europe in Bruges and at University College, London, a role as specialist advisor to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, and a stint in public affairs for Natural England. All the while, he periodically wrote about conservation and the outdoors for outlets such as Guardian and Country Life.
In retirement, he took up writing, publishing two biographies – of TV star turned-environmental campaigner Kenneth Allsopp in Keeping the Barbarians and Bay (2013) and national park pioneer John Dower in Fight for it Now (2019). His journalist’s instincts didn’t disappoint, and in doorstepping both his subjects’ families he ended up making lifelong friends.
In later years he developed dementia, but benefitted hugely from the care and compassion of the staff at Vale House in Oxford. To the end he retained his humour, gentleness and consideration for others. He is survived by Kathryn, Tom, two grandchildren, and a huge collection of OS maps, annotated to mark pubs near walking routes.
Kindly provided by his son, Tom Wilkinson