b. Norwich, 1778;
d. Cambridge, 1839.

English architect and classical scholar who pioneered the Greek Revival in Britain. The eldest son of an architect, Wilkins took a joint degree in classics and mathematics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1796-1800). He was elected to the Society of Antiquaries and travelled round Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor as University Scholar. On his return in 1807 he published Antiquities of Magna Graecia, which paved the way for the archaeological Greek Revival. But his approach was rather smug and doctrinaire, and he was later to be outwitted and upstaged by his leading rival, Sir Robert Smirke. Wilkins’s first major commission was for Downing College, Cambridge, of historical significance as the first true university campus comprising separate buildings arranged around a central lawn. He was presented with several opportunities to develop his Greek Revival style in London: University College, St George’s Hospital and the National Gallery, but none of these major commissions was well received. In particular, the patchy fa?ade of the National Gallery served only to lower Wilkins’s reputation and highlight his failure to subordinate the parts to the whole. The scheme was, however, dogged by financial constraints. Wilkins also undertook a parallel career as a Gothicist, his most important works being additions to Trinity, King’s and Corpus Christi colleges in Cambridge. After 1830 Wilkins’s health and career declined. In 1837 Wilkins gained Pyrrhic consolation in being elected to the Royal Academy as Professor of Architecture.