Reginald Pepys Winnington-Ingram was born in Sherborne, Dorset on 22 January 1904, the son of Rear admiral Charles William Winnington-Ingram and his wife Ida Vera Maude (née Chambers).
From 1953 until his retirement in 1971, he was Professor of Greek Language and Literature at King's College London.
He also served as Director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London.
He published groundbreaking studies on Euripides' Bacchae, and on the work of Sophocles and Aeschylus.
[citation needed] In 1963, Winnington-Ingram initiated the King's College Greek Play, an annual performance of a Greek drama by the students of King's College London.