Wilkins was born in Michigan, the fifth of nine children of a miner from Cornwall, England.
He served in the United States Army in World War I as a Sergeant, receiving a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant.
He was invited to Seattle by a classmate and settled there, passing the Washington State bar and marrying the daughter of a Yakima rancher.
At the outbreak of World War II, Wilkins re-enlisted in the Army and served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps.
In 1951, Wilkins presided over the infamous libel trial against author Betty MacDonald, brought by nine people who claimed to be the Kettle family MacDonald wrote about in her best-selling book, The Egg and I.