Author: Wodhull, Michael
Biography:
WODHULL, Michael (1740-1816: ODNB)
Wodhull was a very wealthy man and is now better known as a book collector than as a poet, but he had a productive literary career that culminated in a much respected translation of all the tragedies of Euripides. The son and heir of John Wodhull of Thenford, Northamptonshire, and his second wife Rebecca Watkins, he was born at Thenford on 15 Aug. 1740 and baptised there on 18 Aug. On the death of his father in 1754 he was appointed a guardian until he reached his majority. He went to school first at Twyford, Buckinghamshire, and then at Winchester School in Hampshire where his tutor was Joseph Warton (1722-1800). He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1758, but did not proceed to a degree. On 30 Nov. 1761, aged 21, he married Catherine Milcah Ingram (1744-1808) at Thenford; the marriage was childless. Wodhull built a mansion at Thenford, maintained a London house in Berkeley Square, and began seriously collecting books and manuscripts. His first verse publications date from this period: Ode to the Muses (1760), Ode to Criticism (1761), and an early, unauthorized version of The Equality of Mankind (1765). His Euripides, advertised in 1774, appeared in four volumes in 1782. Wodhull served as Sheriff of the county in 1783. In 1803, on a trip to Paris to visit libraries, he suffered a stroke that weakened him physically and was much later (1835-9) made the foundation of ineffectual challenges to his will. Predeceased by his wife Catherine, Wodhull died in the library at Thenford on 10 Nov. 1816 and was buried on 15 Nov. He left the bulk of his estate to her youngest sister, Mary Ingram (d 1824). He had disposed of part of his book collection at two auction sales in 1801 and 1803, but over 4000 volumes remained at Thenford until a final sale in 1886. (ODNB 7 July 2024; ancestry.com 7 July 2024; findmypast.com 7 July 2024; Alumni Oxonienses; Morning Post 13 Nov. 1816) HJ
Other Names:
- Mr. Wodhull