In Memoriam: John Wilson: 1928-2003

John Boyd Wilson was born the son of an Anglican clergyman in 1928. He won scholarships to Winchester College, then to New College Oxford, where he took a double first in classics and philosophy. Following 9 years as a schoolteacher, he taught briefly at the Universities of Toronto and Sussex, before helping in 1965 to set up the Farmington Trust Research Unit in Moral Education at Oxford, which he directed until 1972. From Farmington he moved to the Oxford University Department of Educational Studies, where he remained as lecturer and latterly senior research associate until his death in August 2003.Throughout his life, John Wilson was amazingly prolific. He was sole author of some 30 books and editor or joint contributor to a further seven, virtually all published by major international companies. He contributed countless journal articles and book chapters, as well as newspaper and magazine articles. His early work included classical history and general topics, but the bulk of his contribution was in the philosophy of education, in particular moral or values education, with his most recent work extending into love and social relationships.John’s design for the Farmington Trust and the work he achieved there constituted a major step for values education and provide a clear illustration of talents and approaches that were in a number of respects ahead of their time. Farmington was, for example, intended to embody interdisciplinary collaboration drawing on philosophy, psychology and sociology, an aspiration that even today remains a major but challenging requirement for real progress in values education. At Farmington, John Wilson became founding editor of Moral Education, the immediate forerunner of The Journal of Moral Education.Likewise, the most noteworthy component of the seminal Farmington output An Introduction to Moral Education (1967) was his attempt to map out the meaning of being morally educated. In the face of the usual sectional polarizations plaguing educational thinking, this was a clearly articulated, nonreductionist, integrated approach built around the concept of person. A morally educated person is one who at various levels grasps and respects what it is to be a person in their dealings with others and self. This involves not only understanding of the concept, but its use in reasoning and problem solving concerning appropriate action, interpersonal sensitivity and ability to translate intention into action.Nowadays, in an educational world dominated by concerns with purpose and accountability, such a contribution would surely gain influential recognition. But U.K. educational circles, whose long-standing suspicion of explicit articulation and analysis was being reinforced at the time by reaction to the behavioural objectives movement across the Atlantic, offered less fertile ground. Hence John Wilson became no less renowned outside his own country: although “prophet” is a term he would certainly have scoffed at, it is perhaps ironic that today leading U.K. writings on social and moral education stress the centrality of personhood.That John Wilson continued to explore and develop his ideas without cease would come as no surprise to anyone who had any extended contact with him, as was my privilege, working with him during his final year at the Farmington Trust and beyond. John was unfailingly charming and thoughtful, humorous and provocative, curious and open, focused and incredibly industrious. His fluency and razor-sharp ability were accompanied by a true modesty and sensitivity. We celebrate a great moral educator and fellow human, and we mourn his loss.Peter Tomlinson

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