Born in Broad Street, London, on 8 October 1711, he was the youngest son of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly by his wife Sarah Curtis. Having graduated Bachelor of Laws in 1735 Hoadly decided to become a clergyman, a career in which his father had patronage. On 29 November 1735 he was appointed chancellor of the diocese of Winchester, and was ordained deacon by his father on the following 7 December, and priest the 21st of the same month.
Corpus Christi College.
After attending Newcome"s school at Hackney, where he played the part of Phocyas in John Hughes"s Siege of Damascus,’ he was sent in 1730 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. At about the same time he entered the Middle Temple in order to qualify for the Barometer He was immediately received into Frederick, Prince of Wales"s household as his chaplain, as he afterwards was in that of the Princess Dowager, on 6 May 1751.
Hoadly accumulated preferments.
He obtained the rectory of Mitchelmersh, Hampshire, on 8 March 1737, that of Wroughton, Wiltshire, on 8 September, and that of Alresford, Hampshire, and the eighth prebendal stall in Winchester Cathedral on 29 November of the same year. On 9 June 1743 he was instituted to the rectory of Saint Mary, near Southampton, and on 16 December 1746 to the vicarage of Overton, Hampshire.
On 4 January 1748 Thomas Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws In May 1760 he was appointed to the mastership of Saint Cross, Winchester. All these preferments he retained until his death (16 March 1776), except the rectory of Wroughton and the prebend of Winchester, which he resigned in June 1760.
Hoadly, Garrick and William Hogarth once enacted together Ragandjaw, a parody on the ghost scene in Shakespeare"s Julius Cæsar.
Hoadly wrote the verses for A Rake"s Progress, the printed set of engraving by Hogarth.
