This surname is derived from an official title. 'the woodward,' a forest officer who looked after wood and vert. 'Wodewarde, or walkare in 'John Keeper, or Woodward, of Buckholt-wood,' 31 Henry VIII: Rudder's Gloucestershire.

Roger le Wodeward, Henry III-Edward I. I.

Aylward le Wodeward, Essex, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Adam le Wodeward, Oxfordshire, ibid.

William le Wodewarde, Somerset, 1 Edward III: Kirby's Quest.

Richard le Wodeward, Sussex, 20 Edward I: Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III.

Johannes Woddeword, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Modern instances are needless.

The officer whose duty it was to guard the woods and verts therein (ME. wode ward(e, Old English wuduweard).

(English) Wood-Warden, Forester [Middle English wodeward(e, wudeward, Old English wuduw(e)ard] Wudu-wearde [dat.] gebyreð tele wind- fylled treów (To the woodward belongs each wind- felled tree).—Rect. Sing. Pers.; Thorpe, anciently Laws, p. 188. In the Latin transl. of the above Anglo-Saxon law the woodward is described as "custos nemoris vel forestarius.”

Elias le Wudeward.—Lanc. Assize-Rolls, A.D. 1246.

Aylward le Wodeward.—Hund. Rolls, A.D. 1274.

“Grant by the Dean, John Goodman, to Humphry Walrond of See, Somerset, for life, of the office of woodward in the forest of Roche, Somerset, with the yearly stipend of four loads of wood and 4s.: A.D. 1553-4.”—Cal. MSS. Dn. and Ch. Wells, ii. 277.

(English) The officer who had charge of the wood, a forester.

(From wood and ward, custos: see Ward.) "An officer of the forest, whose charge is to look after the woods and vert there; his very name denotes his office; he must present all offences within his charge at the court of attachments, or swain-mote, to the chief foresters or verderers; and if he see or know any malefactors, or if he shall find any deer killed or hurt, he must acquaint a verderer thereof, and present the same at the next court of the forest. And by the law he must not walk with bow and arrows, but with a forest-bill or hatchet." Manwode, quoted in Nelson's Laws of Game. It is added that "the Woodward ought to appear at every justice-seat, and when he is called, he must present his hatchet to the Lord chief-justice in Eyre." Le Wodeward. H.R.

Wood—ward, a forest—keeper or officer, who walked with a forest—bill, and took cognizance of all offenses committed.

Woodward. —This ancient name is mostly confined to the midlands, being best represented in Worcestershire, Derbyshire, and also, but to a less extent, in most of the counties adjacent to them. It is absent or rare in southern England, south of a line joining the mouths of the Thames and the Severn; and it is similarly infrequent or not permanently established in northern England, north of Yorkshire. The Woodwards, or "forest - keepers," the Wodewards of the Hundred Rolls, were, in the reign of Edward I., numerous in Essex and Oxfordshire, where the surname still remains, and they were also at that time represented in Bucks.