Woodward was born on 1 May 1665, or possibly 1668, in a village (possibly Wirksworth) in Derbyshire; his family may have been from Gloucestershire and his mother's maiden surname Burdett.[1] At the age of sixteen he went to London, where he was initially apprenticed to a linen draper, but later studied medicine with Dr. Peter Barwick, physician to Charles II. As a leading physician who had never been to university, Woodward was a leading figure on the "Modern" side in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in early 18th century England, on the medical and other fronts.[2] In 1692 he was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic. In 1693 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, in 1695 was made M.D. by Archbishop Tenison and also by Cambridge,[3] and in 1702 became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He died on 25 April 1728, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.