John Cockin was born at Halesowen, Worcestershire, on 18 November 1932, the son of John Edward Cockin, an engineer, and Mary Green, the daughter of a farmer. From Halesowen Grammar School, he went to medical school in Birmingham, where he gained distinctions in surgery and paediatrics, won the Joseph Gamgee prize in clinical surgery, played rugby and cricket, and became a successful shot-putter. After junior appointments in Stourbridge and National Service in the RAMC, he became orthopaedic registrar to the United Bristol Hospitals. He then won a research fellowship to the Massachussetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a teaching fellowship in orthopaedics at Harvard Medical School. On his return, he became a lecturer and first assistant in the Nuffield department of orthopaedics at Oxford, and was made a consultant surgeon and director of the accident service at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and the Radcliffe Infirmary. He was a research fellow and member of the governing body of Hertford College, Oxford. He married a Miss Partridge in 1956 and they had three daughters. He died sometime in early 1999.