Background
The family made their fortune in selling textiles to the Confederate government, and his father was the founder of the New York Cotton Exchange.
The family made their fortune in selling textiles to the Confederate government, and his father was the founder of the New York Cotton Exchange.
He studied at Groton and at Harvard, graduating in 1898, and Harvard Law School in 1901.
Born in New York City to William Woodward and Sarah Abagail Rodman, William came from a prominent and wealthy Maryland family that dates back to colonial times. In 1901, he was admitted to the Barometer Foreign the next two years Woodward lived in London, United Kingdom where he served as secretary to the United States ambassador to Britain, Joseph Choate.
William Woodward Senior"s father had helped James purchase a large portion of the bank years earlier before his death.
Following his uncle"s death, William Woodward, Senior became president of the bank in 1910, serving in that capacity until a 1929 merger when he was appointed chairman of the new corporate entity called Central Hanover Bank & Trust. William Woodward inherited a controlling interest in Hanover National Bank plus the historic Belair Mansion and Study in Collington, Maryland.
Belair is a very historic estate where Colonial Governor of Maryland, Samuel Ogle had brought the first thoroughbred horses imported to America from England in 1747. James T. Woodward acquired it in 1898 for an undisclosed sum of money.
William Woodward built the Belair Study into the dominant breeding and thoroughbred horse racing operation in the United States during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
Woodward was elected to the United States Jockey Club in 1917 and served as its chairman from 1930 until 1950. One of the main efforts he pursued was the repeal of the Jersey Acting, a regulation of the British Thoroughbred stud book that prevented most American-bred Thoroughbreds from being registered in the United Kingdom as purebred Thoroughbreds. Today the Belair Stable Museum in Bowie, Maryland highlights the work of William Woodward, Senior and others connected to the Belair Study.
There, he joined with other members of the political and economic elite including King Edward VII, at fashionable events including thoroughbred horse races, the favorite pastime of English royalty and nobility. In 1950, Woodward was elected an honorary member of the British Jockey Club.