Henry Woodfall Senior (1686–1747; fl. 1701–1747)
Henray Woodfall I, printer and stationer (1701–47) at Elzevier's Head without Temple Bar; in Paternoster Row. Father of printer and publisher Henry Woodfall II (1713–1769) and grandfather of printer and newspaper editor Henry Sampson Woodfall (1739–1805).
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
WOODFALL (HENRY), printer in London, without Temple Bar, 1724–. Mentioned in Negus's list as "well-affected". Nichols adds this note: "This was the first, I believe, of a name which has now for almost a century been conspicuous in the Annals of Typography. That the more immediate subject of this note was a man of wit and humour, is evident from the famous old ballad of Darby and Joan which he wrote when an apprentice to the printer of that name. At the age of forty he commenced master, at the suggestion, and under the auspices of Mr. Pope, who had distinguished his abilities as a scholar whilst a journeyman in the employment of the then printer to this admired author. Of his personal history I know little farther, except that he carried on a considerable business with reputation; and had two sons, Henry, a printer in Paternoster Row, and George a bookseller at Charing Cross, both of whom I well remember". [Lit. Anecd. I. 300.] Woodfall was apprentice to one John Darby: as he was forty by 1724, this must have been to the elder Darby, who died in 1704.