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William Keith Hancock was an historian and academic. He received a BA Hons in Classics from the University of Melbourne in 1920. After winning a Rhodes scholarship in 1920, Hancock received a BA (1923) and MA (1930) from Oxford. He was appointed chair of modern history at the University of Adelaide in 1926. In 1934, he returned to England as chair of modern history at the University of Birmingham. After the war, Hancock was involved in developing the Australian National University in Canberra. In 1949, he was appointed director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, a new research institute within the University of London. Returning to Australia in 1957, Hancock was director of the Research School of Social Sciences (1957-61) and professor of history (1957-65) at the ANU. He helped found the Australian Dictionary of Biography (chairman 1959-65) and the Australian Academy of the Humanities (president 1969-71).

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Davidson, Jim. Hancock, Sir William Keith (1898-1988), Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Published in hard copy 2007, accessed online 9 January 2013.