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.[1]

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 from the Open University as Doctor of the University.

References

  • "Mathematics Counts". London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1982. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013.
  • Tony Crilly (2001), Memories of Sir Wilfred Cockcroft 1923–1999, The Mathematical Gazette 85 (502), 72. JSTOR 3620472
  • Obituary, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society (2005), 37, 149-155
  • Short biography, and account of archives at Hull University, Access to Archives
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