Collingwood’s reading of Hegel is something of a puzzle. On the one hand, he is highly influenced by Hegel. His unpublished writings show him to be very keen to take up Hegelian ideas, and to develop them in multiple ways. However, his published writings are more cautious about and critical of Hegel. It is concluded that Hegel’s influence on Collingwood is not straightforward and thereby complicates views on intellectual influence held by both Collingwood and Hegel. They both imagine that thinkers can be understood as setting out a set of ideas unambiguously, when this is not always the case.