John Arthur Wilkinson studied medicine in Wales and graduated MB, BCh in 1948. Initially he worked as a registrar at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He then became senior registrar at the Westminster Hospital and passed the fellowship of the college in 1957. He won the Robert Jones Prize and the gold medal of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1961 and the Alex Simpson Smith prize in 1964. Appointed consultant in orthopaedic surgery to the Southampton and S. W. Hants Health District, he worked at the Southampton hospitals and the Lord Mayor Treloar Hospital in Alton, Hampshire. He was on the clinical teaching staff of Southampton University and Hunterian Professor at the college in 1963. A fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, he was also a fellow and ABC travelling fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. He died in Winchester on 11 January 2020.