Benjamin Woodroffe

Benjamin Woodroffe (1638–1711) was an English cleric and college head.

The son of the Rev. Timothy Woodroffe, he was born in Canditch Street, St. Mary Magdalen parish, Oxford, in April 1638. He was educated at Westminster School, and was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1656, matriculating on 23 July 1656. He graduated B.A. 1 November 1659, M.A. 17 June 1662, and he was incorporated at Cambridge in 1664. From about 1662 he was a noted tutor at Christ Church, and in 1663 he studied chemistry with Anthony Wood, John Locke, and others, at Oxford under Peter Staehl. He was admitted Fellow of the Royal Society on 7 May 1668.

Woodroffe was appointed chaplain to James, Duke of York in 1669, and served with him when the duke was in command of HMS Royal Prince in the battle of Sole Bay on 28 May 1672. It led to his appointment as chaplain to Charles II in 1674, and to advancement in the church. He became lecturer to the Temple Church in November 1672, and through the influence of the Duke of York was installed canon of Christ Church on 17 December 1672. On 14 January 1673 he proceeded B.D. and D.D.

Through the favour of Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon, a former pupil, Woodroffe was instituted in 1673 to the vicarage of Piddlehinton in Dorset; but resigned it in the next year, when he was made subdean of Christ Church. At this time Woodroffe was a frequent preacher at Oxford, though according to Humphrey Prideaux the subject of ridicule. In 1675 he was appointed to the vicarage of Shrivenham, Berkshire, on the nomination of Heneage Finch, to whose three sons he had been tutor at Christ Church; Prideaux asserted that he got the living by tricking Richard Peers. He was appointed to the rectory of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, London, on 19 April 1676, and he was collated to a canonry in Lichfield Cathedral on 21 September 1678. These preferments he held with his canonry at Christ Church for the rest of his life.

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