Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goddard, William Stanley
GODDARD, WILLIAM STANLEY, D.D. (1757–1845), head-master of Winchester College, son of John Goddard, a merchant, was born at Stepney on 9 Oct. 1757. He was educated at Winchester, first as a chorister, afterwards as a scholar under Dr. Warton (1771–6), and then went as a commoner to Merton (B.A. degree 1781, M.A. 1783, D.D. 1795). In 1784 he was appointed hostiarius or second master of Winchester, and appears to have done what he could to counteract the lax discipline of Dr. Warton, which resulted in the famous ‘rebellion’ of 1793, during which Goddard's house was broken into. Sydney Smith, who was under Goddard, described his life at Winchester as one of misery (Lady Holland, Memoir of Sydney Smith, i. 7, 4th ed.); but his experience seems to have been an exceptional one (see the evidence collected by the Rev. H. C. Adams in Wykehamica at p. 160). In 1796 Goddard succeeded Dr. Warton as head-master, and retained the appointment until 1809, when he retired. He was one of the best head-masters Winchester has ever had. Within three years he had raised the numbers of the school from 60 to 144, and its scholarship showed immediate improvement. Among his pupils were Bishops Lipscombe and Shuttleworth, Lords Cranworth and Eversley, Sir Robert Inglis, Augustus Hare, and Dr. Arnold, and it is probable that many of the educational principles which Dr. Arnold is supposed to have invented, especially that of governing by reliance on boys' sense of honour, were really derived by him from Goddard. He was an able teacher, a firm disciplinarian, and the only outbreak under his rule, that of 1808, was of a mild character (Augustus Hare, Memorials of a Quiet Life, vol. i. ch. iv.; Stanley, Life of Dr. Arnold, i. 2).
After his resignation of the head-mastership Goddard was made a prebendary of St. Paul's in January 1814, and canon of Salisbury in October 1829; he was also presented to the living of Barton in Sussex, and for several years held that of Wherwell, near Andover, in commendam. His last years were spent partly in Cadogan Place, Chelsea, London, partly at Andover, where, besides numerous benefactions, he rebuilt Foxcote Church, at the cost of some 30,000l. To Winchester College he presented 25,000l., to provide for the annual salaries of the masters, which had previously been charged in the accounts of the boys' parents. In grateful memory of him a scholarship of the value of 25l. a year, and tenable for four years, was founded at Winchester in 1846. Goddard's literary remains consist of a Latin elegy on Dr. Warton (Wool, Life of Warton, i. 191) and some sermons, one of which was preached on the occasion of the consecration of his old schoolfellow, Dr. Howley, as bishop of London (1813).
[‘Wykehamica,’ by the Rev. H. C. Adams, mentioned above; Gent. Mag. 1845, xxiv. 642–4.]