Sir Walter Fraser Oakeshott (11 November 1903 – 13 October 1987) was a Transvaal-born British schoolmaster and academic, who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He is best known for discovering the Winchester Manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in 1934.
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Biography
Oakeshott was born on 11 November 1903 in Transvaal Colony, the second son of doctor Walter Oakeshott and his wife Kathleen. His father practised in Lydenburg, Transvaal. After the death of his father, his mother brought the family back to England. From 1917 Oakeshott was educated at Tonbridge School, where he eventually became School Captain (Head of School). He won a Classics exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford in 1922, graduating in 1926 with first class honours.
After graduation, Oakeshott taught at various schools. His first post was at Tooting Bec School, London, followed by the Merchant Taylors' School in 1927. From 1931 to 1938, he worked for Winchester College as an Assistant Master, where in 1934 he made his discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in their Fellows' Library.
From 1936 to 1937, he took a leave of absence from teaching to serve on an inquiry into unemployment sponsored by the Pilgrim Trust, the findings of which were written up as Men without Work by William Temple (1938).