Born at Folkestone on 10 March 1871, the second son of John F Wilkin, MRCS 1862, JP, of Roxby House, West Cliff, Folkestone and afterwards of Rose Ash, South Molton, Devon, and Jane Laud Shoolbred, his wife. He was educated at Haileybury 1883-90, where he was a scholar, reached the Upper Sixth Form, shot for the School in 1889 and '90, and played in the football XV 1888-89, being captain in 1889; Henry LeFanu, afterwards chaplain to Guy's Hospital and ultimately Primate of Australia, and Erskine Childers, the Irish rebel, were with him in the XV of 1888. He was elected a minor scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1890, and was placed in the first division of the second class in the Classical Tripos, part 1, 1893. He took his medical training at Guy's Hospital, where he served as house surgeon and clinical assistant. He then settled at 46 London Road, Gloucester, where he became consulting surgeon to the Children's Hospital. After retirement he lived at Rose Ash, Barton, South Molton, near Barnstaple, North Devon, where he died unmarried on 16 April 1942, aged 71.