South African botanist and ecologist who wrote The Veld Types of South Africa (1953). A student of R.S. Adamson and Margaret Levyns at the University of Cape Town, Acocks graduated in 1935 with an MSc and was hired by the Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry, to conduct botanical surveys on pasture research stations across South Africa. In 1945, he was transferred to the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology in Escourt, where he began compiling a vegetation map of South Africa. From 1948 until his retirement in 1976, he worked at Grootfontein College of Agriculture in Middelburg, Eastern Cape Town Province.

His review of Veld in South Africa classifies the region into 75 vegetation classes and provides full lists of species names, remaining the most comprehensive description of the vegetation of South Africa. A revised manuscript, completed a few weeks before his death, exists in the archives of the National Botanical Institute (NBG). Another book, Key Grasses of South Africa, was published posthumously in 1990.

Acocks collected some 28,000 specimens from throughout South Africa, usually with several duplicates. In addition, a four-month secondment in 1938 to Swedish botanist Adolf Hafström resulted in a joint collection of 2,340 specimens gathered between Cape Town and Victoria Falls. An archive of Acocks's data records exists at NBG and his meticulous field notes are compiled into the computerized plant distribution database, ACKDAT. Cliffortia acockii Weim., Erica acockii Compton (= Erica alexandri Guthrie & Bolus subsp. acockii (Compton) E.G.H. Oliv.), Restio acocksii Pillans, and Royena acocksii De Winter (= Diospyros acocksii (De Winter) De Winter) are some of the taxa named in his honour.

Sources:
1977, Journal of South African Botany, 43(1)
2003, South African Journal of Botany, 69(1).