Michael Wodhull
English book-collector and translator (1740–1816)
Michael Wodhull (15 August 1740 – 10 November 1816) was an English poet, book-collector, and translator.
Life
The son of John Wodhull (1678–1754) of Thenford, Northamptonshire, by his second wife, Rebeccah (1702–1794), daughter of Charles Watkins of Aynhoe, he was born at Thenford on 15 August 1740. He was sent from a private school at Twyford to Winchester College. On 13 January 1758 he matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, but did not take a degree.
Wodhull was wealthy, with a town house in Berkeley Square. Around 1765 he built Thenford House, the manor-house replacing an Elizabethan mansion, near the church at Thenford. He was a Whig supporter of civil and religious liberty, and his poems show sympathy with the views of Rousseau. He was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783. He deprecated the long war with France, and after the treaty of Amiens visited Paris to see its libraries. For a time he was among the détenus of Napoleon, and he came back to England an invalid.
“Michael Wodhull” enters the record as english book-collector and translator (1740–1816). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Michael, Wodhull and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19927871. VIAF identifies the subject as 38088759. The Library of Congress control number is n83122528. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1740, 1816, 1678 and 1754.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Wodhull” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.