{{short description|English schoolmaster (c. 1699–1745)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = William Budworth | image = Brewood_Grammar_School_1799_7475-0.jpg | image_size = | caption = Brewood Grammar School in 1799 | birth_date = c. 1699 | birth_place = Longford, Derbyshire | death_date = September 1745 | death_place = | education = Derby School, Market Bosworth & Christ's College, Cambridge | occupation = Schoolmaster | spouse = | children = | parents = | relatives = }}
'''William Budworth''' (1699 – September 1745) was a schoolmaster at Brewood in Staffordshire, England. He taught several notable pupils, but he is most remembered for not employing Samuel Johnson as an assistant at Brewood Grammar School.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Memorial of the parishes of Greensted-Budworth, Chipping Ongar and High Laver, with an account of the families of Cleeve and Budworth|url=https://beardeddwarf.com/memorials-parish-greensted-budworth/|last=|first=|date=|website=Bearded Dwarf|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}{{Dead link|date=October 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref>
==Life and career== Budworth was born in about 1699 in Marston on Dove,<ref name=Venn>{{acad|id=BDWT716W|name=Budworth, William}}</ref> the son of the Reverend Luke Budworth BA, rector of Cubley and vicar of Longford, Derbyshire, and afterward rector of the parishes of Tillesham and Wellingham in Norfolk following the recommendation of Thomas Coke.<ref>{{CCEd |type=person |id=42312 |name=Budworth, Luke |yob=1692 |yod=1739 |accessed=2 February 2014 }}</ref><ref name=dnb>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Budworth, William|volume=7}}</ref> He was educated at Derby School, the grammar school at Market Bosworth under Anthony Blackwall, and then at Christ's College, Cambridge (BA 1720, MA 1726).<ref name=Venn/><ref name=mem>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xdkcAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22William+Budworth%22&pg=PA332 Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century] By John Nichols, Samuel Bentley, p332, accessed 24 March 2008</ref> Soon after graduating he was appointed master of Rugeley Grammar School in Staffordshire and he became the vicar of Hope in Derbyshire in 1731.<ref name="clergy">{{CCEd |type=person |id=42313 |name=Budworth, William |yob=1723 |yod=1737 |accessed=2 February 2014 }}</ref> In 1733, on the death of Dr. Hillman he became headmaster at Brewood Grammar School.<ref name=anec>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xdkcAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22William+Budworth%22&pg=PA332 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 332-55, 759, vi. 469, 470]</ref>
thumb|left|St. Mary & St. Luke, Shareshill in 2003 He obtained the vicarage of Brewood on the presentation of the Dean of Lichfield,<ref name=clergy/> and he was presented to the donative chapel of Shareshill, near Brewood, by Sir Edward Littleton, 3rd Baronet, of Pillaton Hall, who entrusted to him the education of his cousin and heir Edward Littleton, his uncle Fisher's son.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=zQ0YAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA123 ''Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage of England''], by William Courthope, 1835, p. 123 accessed 28 April 2008</ref> In 1736 he would have engaged the celebrated Samuel Johnson as an assistant in the school, but he was apprehensive about the "strange motion of the head" from which Johnson suffered. Budworth thought this might make him an object of ridicule in the school.<ref>Lives Of The English Poets By Henry Francis Cary, p.8, 2004, Kessinger, {{ISBN|1-4191-3096-X}}, accessed 25 April 2008</ref> Johnson is thought to have been known to Budworth as Johnson had served as an usher to the headmaster at Market Bosworth whilst Budworth was still there.<ref name=anec/>
One of Budworth's pupils was Richard Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester,<ref>{{CCEd |type=bishop |id=633 |name=Hurd, Richard |title=Bishop of Worcester |accessed=2 February 2014 }}</ref> who says ''"be I possessed every talent of a perfect institutor of youth in a degree which I believe has been rarely found in any of that profession since the days of Quinctilian."''<ref name=mem/> Both Richard Hurd and Sir Edward Littleton were on their way to visit him in 1745 when they heard he had died in a "fit of apoplexy". Littleton paid for a memorial at his church in Shareshill.<ref>[http://www.the-staffordshire-encyclopaedia.co.uk/view.php?id=83 Staffordshire Encyclopedia] accessed 28 April 2008</ref>
==References== {{Reflist|2}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Budworth, William}} Category:1699 births Category:1745 deaths Category:People from Derbyshire Category:People educated at Derby School Category:Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Category:18th-century English Anglican priests Category:People from Staffordshire Category:People from Longford, Derbyshire