John Leofric Stocks

Who was John Leofric Stocks?

John Leofric Stocks DSO was a British philosopher and was briefly Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 1937.

He was born the sixth of twelve children to John Edward Stocks, the vicar of Market Harborough, Leicestershire and educated at Rugby and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He gradusted in 1903 and in 1906 was an elected fellow and tutor of St. John's College, Oxford, where he remained, except for war service, until 1924. His war service was in the British Army with the King's Royal Rifle Corps during the First World War when he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry at Beaucourt. In 1924 he was elected professor of philosophy at the University of Manchester and in 1936 was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool.

His professional philosophical interests were in Aristotelian studies and Epicureanism. He was president of the Aristotelian Society.

He died on a visit to Swansea in 1987. He had married Mary Danvers Brinton, who was later Baroness Stocks, with whom he had a son and two daughters.