Benjamin Woodroffe

Timothy Woodroffe, he was born in Canditch Street, St. Mary Magdalen parish, Oxford, in April 1638.

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.

[1] 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.

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.

The management of the college and other issues brought a negative reaction from the Greek ecclesiastical authorities at Constantinople, and study at Oxford was forbidden.

One of the students, Franciscos Prossalentes, printed in 1706 a work in Greek, reprinted in 1862, that was damaging to Woodroffe's reputation.

Gloucester Hall was favoured; but the money was put in question by Woodroffe inserting in the charter a clause that the king might hire and fire fellows as he wished.

Three pamphlets were issued by Woodroffe in its support, and an anonymous reply was written by John Baron.

[citation needed] Woodroffe wrote:[1] He also published individual sermons and poems in Oxford collections.