Author: Woodd, Basil
Biography:
WOODD, Basil (1760-1831: ODNB)
He was born at Richmond, Surrey, on 5 Aug. 1760, the only son of Basil Woodd (1730-60) and his wife Hannah Price (1736-84). He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1778 (BA 1782, MA 1785) and then entered the Established Church. He was lecturer at St. Peter’s, Cornhill (1784-1808), and morning preacher at the Bentinck Chapel, Marylebone, from 1785 until his death. He supervised several schools connected to the chapel and published a few short memoirs of pious children in that cause. He was also Rector of Drayton Beauchamp, Buckinghamshire, from 1808 until his death. He was evangelical and an active member of various religious societies: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Church Missionary Society, British and Foreign Bible Society. He married first Ann Wood (1764-91) on 8 Feb. 1785 at Orlingbury, Northants, with whom he had a son and two daughters. All three died from consumption: Anna Louisa (1786-1828), Hannah Sophia (1789-1817) and Basil Owen (1787-1811). Their lives and their mother’s are recorded in A Family Record (1834). After her death he married Sophia Sarah Jupp (1766-1829) on 3 July 1792 at St. Clement Eastcheap; he had a daughter and two sons who survived him. He died at Paddington Green, London, on 12 Apr. 1831. At St. Mary’s Paddington there is an internal white tablet and a table tomb in the graveyard. In addition to his version of the Psalms of David listed above, he wrote a moving memoir of his mother, Memoirs of Mrs. Hannah Woodd (1793), and a conservative contribution to the Revolution debate, The Revolutionary Spirit of the Times, Considered as the Rod of God’s Anger (1797). He also edited a collection of contemporary religious poems, The Harp of Zion, Sacred, Original and Religious Poetry (n.d.) which has been variously dated 1825 and 1833 (BL). The earlier date cannot be correct since he extracts poems from Anne Eaton Polglase’s (q.v.) The Shipwreck (1827). The evidence for the 1833 date is not known. Two adverts by the publisher Dean and Munday appeared in 1839 and an ownership signature in the Edinburgh University Library copy of 1840 suggest that 1839 is more likely. (ODNB 25 Apr. 2021; A Family Record, or Memoirs of the Late Rev. Basil Woodd, M.A. [1834]; ancestry.co.uk 25 Apr. 2021; CCEd 25 Apr. 2021; Northampton Mercury 14 Feb. 1785; Bath Chronicle 12 July 1792; Oxford Journal 29 Aug. 1829, 16 Apr. 1831; Sun [London] 9 Feb. 1839; Atlas [London] 2 Mar. 1839) AA