H.J. Wilkins
British vicar that exposed Colston's slave links
Henry John Wilkins (17 November 1865 – 23 June 1941) was a British vicar and scholar. H.J. Wilkins uncovered the extent of Colston's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade by publishing Edward Colston 1636-1721 A.D. A Chronological Account of His Life and Work. 100 years later, in 2020, the toppling of Colston's statue in Bristol for this role in the slave trade was widely reported internationally.
Professor Richard Coates of University of the West of England wrote his biography in 2017: Wilkins of Westbury & Redland: the life and writings of Rev Dr Henry John Wilkins (1865-1941), published by ALHA Books.
Career and views
H.J. Wilkins was born in Berkshire on 17 November 1865. Wilkins was president at Oxford High School for Boys. He read literae humaniores at New College and St Catherine's, Oxford, graduating with honours in 1887. After teaching classics for a year he was ordained in 1889. From 1890 to 1900 he was curate then vicar of St Jude's, then a deprived inner city parish and neighborhood where he lived at 39 Little George Street, and was held in high esteem in the parish. Wilkins was then rector of Westbury-on-Trym and minister of Redland Chapel from 1900 until his death on 23 June 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “H.J. Wilkins” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.