He was natural at Fawsley, Northamptonshire, and enlightened at Magdalen College, Oxford (then Magdalen Hall). When ordination he became vicar of his residence town of Fawsley around 1637, however presently resigned & became chaplain in turn to Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Berkeley, and Prince Charles Louis, nephew of King Charles I and afterwards elector palatine of the Rhine.

Inside 1641, Wilkins published an anon. treatise entitled Mercury, or even A Secret & Swift Messenger. This microscopic however comprehensive functiin on cryptography proved a seasonably gift to the diplomats & leaders of the imminent English Civil War. Within 1648 he became warden of Wadham College, Oxford. Under him the college prospered inordinately, for, although a supporter of Oliver Cromwell, he remained in touch by using a virtually all civilised Royalists, who laid their sons within his charge. Within 1659, Richard Cromwell appointed him master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

At a Restoration in 1660 the new authorities deprived Wilkins of the position given him by Cromwell; he gained appointment when prebendary of York and minister of Cranford, Middlesex. Inside 1661 he became preacher at Gray's Inn, and in 1662 vicar of St Lawrence Jewry, London. He became vicar of Polebrook, Northamptonshire, in 1666, prebendary of Exeter in 1667, and in the ensuing month prebendary of St Paul's and bishop of Chester.

Possessing hard scientific tastes, Wilkins was a primary founder of the Royal Society and its first secretary. He died within London.

His many written works include: An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (London, 1668), in which he proposes the newly universal language for the utilise of philosophers the Discovery of a Globe in the Moone (1638, 3rd ed., sustaining an appendix "The possibility of a passage thither," 1640) The Discourse On the Recently Planet (1640) Mercury, or even a Secret & Swift Messenger (1641), the foremost English-language book in cryptography Mathematical Magick (1648)