Richard James Wilkinson CMG (29 May 1867 – 5 December 1941) was a British Colonial administrator, scholar of Malay, and historian. The son of a British Consul, Richard James Wilkinson was born in 1867 in Salonika (Thessaloniki) in the Ottoman Empire. After Felsted School was an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was multilingual and had a command of French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish, and later, Malay and Hokkien which he qualified in, in 1889, while a cadet after joining the Straits Settlements Civil Service. He was an important contributor to the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Asiatic Society (JMBRAS). On 7 November 1900 Wilkinson presented a collection of Malay manuscripts and printed books to the University of Cambridge Library. He was appointed CMG in 1912.