Willis Henry Bocock

Who was Willis Henry Bocock?

Willis Henry Bocock was a prominent administrator and professor of Classics at the University of Georgia. One of the highlights of his career was his appointment as the first Dean of the newly formed University of Georgia Graduate School in 1910. Much of the present success of graduate programs at the University of Georgia can be traced to his visionary leadership. Throughout his career, Bocock maintained a reputation for excellence in scholarship and leadership. Bocock was, as were many members of the first graduate faculty, a Virginian. He was born in 1865, the son of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman. He attended school in Lexington, Virginia and at the Kemper School in Boonville, Missouri. Bocock entered Hampden-Sydney College in 1881. He graduated in 1884 with the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Letters. After his graduation from Hampden-Sydney he spent a year at the University of Virginia and obtained diplomas in Latin and Greek. Bocock was a recipient of the now extinct Master of Arts degree from Hampden-Sydney.

Bocock spent the year after he left the University of Virginia in Richmond as a school teacher. He was offered the position of professor of Greek at Hampden-Sydney in 1886, a position which he gleefully accepted. Hampden-Sydney president J. D. Eggleston wrote of Bocock: “I doubt whether Hampden-Sydney has ever had a more brilliant teacher than W. H. Bocock. He was elected full professor when he was twenty-one.” Bocock also attended the University of Berlin in the period 1892-93 and traveled throughout Europe. He was offered the chair of Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Georgia in 1889. In 1894 separate professorships of Greek and Latin were created. Bocock assumed the professorship of Greek and William Davis Hooper, another Hampden-Sydney graduate, assumed that of Latin.