Joseph Dornford (1794–1868) was an English churchman and academic, senior tutor of Oriel College, Oxford before becoming rector of Plymtree in Devon.
Born 9 January 1794, he was the son of Sir Josiah Dornford of Deptford, Kent, and the half-brother of the writer Josiah Dornford; his mother Esther Fawcett was a Cambridge lady and good friend of the evangelical leader Charles Simeon, and her son Thomas Truebody Thomason by her first marriage was father of James Thomason.
[1][4] Dornford was successively elected tutor and dean of Oriel;[1] he was ordained priest in the Church of England in 1822, and was a university proctor in 1830.
[2] In that role he played a part in the pre-history of the Oxford Movement, tentatively supporting innovations by John Henry Newman in college teaching.
[7] Edward Copleston, now a bishop but a past Noetic and Provost of Oriel, reported to Hawkins that Dornford had split from the other tutors, and gave a nuanced analysis of the teaching debate.
One of these, "The Christian Sacraments", was included in a volume edited by Alexander Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, and other Liturgical Occasions, contributed by bishops and other clergy of the church (1845).