Author: Mavor, William Fordyce
Biography:
MAVOR, William Fordyce (1758-1837: ODNB)
The son of a Scottish farmer, he made his name as a schoolmaster and writer in Oxfordshire. He was born to John and Elizabeth (Low) Mavor on 1 Aug. 1758 at New Deer, Aberdeenshire. At 17, with a basic education, he left home to make his fortune in England. He took a position as assistant master at a private school in Burford, Oxfordshire (1775-82). He also tutored the children of the 4th Duke of Marlborough, a connection that smoothed his way, despite his lack of academic credentials, to ordination as deacon (1781) and priest (1784), and thence to a succession of ecclesiastical appointments and private chaplaincies, the most notable and lucrative being Vicar of Hurley in Berkshire (1789) and Rector of Bladon-with-Woodstock in Oxfordshire (1810). In Jan. 1782 he opened his own school, the Woodstock Academy, and on 17 Oct. that year at Shipton-under-Wychwood he married Ann Harris, with whom he had at least seven children. Mavor wrote a great deal, in a variety of genres and sometimes anonymously or under the pseudonyms “Numa” and “W. F. Martyn.” Besides the poems and plays listed here he produced travel guides, grammars, histories, and textbooks. He contributed to and edited periodicals, including the Oxford University and City Herald. His best known works are practical and educational: a system of shorthand, Universal Stenography (1779); The British Nepos (1787); Elements of Natural History (1795); and The English Spelling Book (1801), with woodcuts by Bewick, which is said to have sold over two million copies by 1823 (ODNB). Aberdeen University bestowed an LLD in 1789; Woodstock made him a member of the city council and elected him Mayor of the town ten times between 1808 and 1834. After the death of his first wife in 1822 he married Harriet Segrave on 23 Dec. 1823 at her home parish of Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire. No records have been found of children from that marriage, although according to ODNB he “started a second family.” He died at the rectory of Woodstock on 29 (not 19) Dec. 1837 and was buried at Woodstock church, where there is a memorial plaque. (ODNB 23 Apr. 2023; findmypast.com 23 Apr. 2023; OUCH 6 Jan. 1838)
Other Names:
- William Mavor