William Woodforde (1679–1758)
William Woodforde (or Woodford) was born in Hartley Mauditt or Mauduit in east Hampshire in about 1679 and baptised there on 19 February 1679. He was the youngest child of the poet Samuel Woodforde (1636–1700) (see ODNB) and his second wife Mary Norton of Binstead, who were married in 1667.
In May 1685 the family went to live in Winchester, where Woodforde’s father died on 11 January 1700. Woodforde attended Winchester College, as did his stepbrother Heighes Woodforde and brothers John and Robert.
Woodforde was subscribed at New College, Oxford on 10 August 1699, where he became a Fellow and obtained his BCL in 1706.
His eldest half-brother, Heighes Woodforde became Vicar of Epsom in 1704, a living which he held until his death in 1725, and the family owned Ebbisham House.
Woodforde obtained his B.Med. and D.Med. in 1724, and in 1730 was appointed Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, a position he held until his death in 1758.
He did not live in Oxford, however: he was at Chichester in 1718, but some time before 1734 had taken up a tenancy of Hylands House in Epsom. By 1745 he was living in Epsom in a a messuage on the eastern side of Church Street with a coach-house and stables.
Woodforde died at Bath on 13 November 1758.
The Will of “William Woodford, Doctor of Physic of Epsom, Surrey” was deposited at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (date of probate 27 January 1759), ref. PROB 11/843.