Henry Sampson Woodfall (21 June 173912 December 1805) was an English printer and journalist. He was born and lived in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
Biography
Woodfall's grandfather Henry Woodfall (c. 1686–1747), was the author of the ballad ''
Darby and Joan'', for which John Darby and his wife were the originals: the elder Woodfall had been apprenticed in 1701 to Darby, a printer in Bartholomew Close in the
Little Britain area of London, who died in 1730.
Woodfall's grandfather printed many of the works of
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
. Woodfall's uncle George was a bookseller in
Charing Cross. His father, Henry Woodfall (1713–1769), was the printer of the newspaper the ''
Public Advertiser
The ''Public Advertiser'' was a London newspaper in the 18th century.
The ''Public Advertiser'' was originally known as the ''London Daily Post and General Advertiser'', then simply the ''General Advertiser'' consisting more or less exclusively o ...
'', and Woodfall was
apprenticed to his father. At the age of nineteen, Woodfall took over the control of the newspaper.
In it appeared, between 21 January 1769 and 21 January 1772, the famous letters of
Junius Junius often refers to:
* Junius (writer), the pseudonym of an 18th-century British political writer of strongly Whig principles
* The nomen of the ancient Roman
* or , the month of June on the ancient Roman calendar
* Rosa Luxemburg's ''Junius Pa ...
. In December 1769 Woodfall published a "Letter to the King" by Junius that brought legal charges against Woodfall and five others for
seditious libel; Woodfall's case went before a jury in June 1770 but a verdict of
mistrial was handed down by
Lord Mansfield in November 1770. Woodfall sold his interest in the ''Public Advertiser'' in 1793.
His son
George Woodfall (1767–1844) was also in the family printing business.
Woodfall's younger brother,
William Woodfall (1746–1803), a journalist, established in 1789 a daily paper called the ''Diary, or Woodfall's Register'', in which, for the first time, reports of
parliamentary debates were published on the morning after they had taken place.
William Woodfall's nickname was "Memory" Woodfall based on his ability to memorize Parliamentary speeches at a time when journalists were not allowed to take notes or write down speeches while they were being delivered.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodfall, Henry Sampson
English printers
English male journalists
1739 births
1805 deaths
Writers from London