Sir Wilfred Halliday Cockcroft (7 June 1923 – 27 September 1999) was an eminent mathematics educator from the University of Hull.
Early life He attended Keighley Boys' Grammar School, now called Beckfoot Oakbank, and studied Mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford. During WWII he worked in radar.
Career Mathematics report In 1978 he was commissioned by the then Labour government to chair a comprehensive inquiry into the teaching of mathematics in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. The committee of inquiry produced its report in 1982, published as Mathematics Counts but widely known as "the Cockcroft report".
Examinations From 1983 to 1988 he was Chairman and Chief Executive of the Secondary Exams Council.
Personal life He married in 1949, with two sons, and later married in 1982.
Cockcroft was knighted in 1983, and in May 1984 was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of the University from the Open University.
References
External links Tony Crilly (2001), Memories of Sir Wilfred Cockcroft 1923–1999, The Mathematical Gazette 85 (502), 72. Obituary, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society (2005), 37, 149-155 Short biography, and account of archives at Hull University, Access to Archives