Born the 9th of 12 children in 1811, Nathaniel Woodard's father was an impoverished farmer in Basildon, and he and his siblings were educated at home by their mother, a very pious Church of England lady. He wanted to join the priesthood and at 23, thanks to the generosity of two aunts, entered Oxford University, where it took him 6 years to obtain a degree. He married his wife Elizabeth at the age of 26 years.

At 30, he was given the job of Curate in Bethnal Green in the East End of London. This was a very poor parish, but he raised sufficient funds to finish off the Church and educate his children. He was very popular among most of his parishioners, but some of them complained to the Bishop of London about his introduction of catholic ideals (confession). Various letters in his support were published by national newspapers, but eventually he was forced to resign and in the spring of 1846 he came to the wilderness of St. Mary's de Houra (of the Harbour) in New Shoreham, Sussex.

At the time he had been married for 10 years and 5 of his 8 children had been born (2 died very young, and another son died aged 19). Although not a wealthy area, neither was it poverty stricken because it was a very busy port. He was particularly concerned with the education of the middle classes - he felt unable to offer the lower classes any significant help, and the upper classes already had Eton and other public schools. He wanted to provide the lower, middle and upper middle classes with a good Christian education and in 1848 St. Mary's Grammar School was founded. The master taught reading, writing and arithmetic, religious instruction, also navigation, land surveying and book-keeping - all for 15 shillings a quarter - Italian and French were an extra £4 a year. The College of St. Mary and St. Nicholas (as it was known) was intended for the sons of upper middle classes, professional men, and in time this became Lancing College, moving to its present site in 1857. In an early clothing list for Lancing College boys they were required to have a bowler hat, 24 handkerchiefs, 14 pairs of socks, but only 3 pairs of underpants!

Nathaniel was a charismatic man and an excellent fundraiser, and through his contacts with politicians, bankers, archbishops during his time in London, he was able to raise enough to fund a further two schools in Shoreham: St. John's School for the middle middle classes (sons of tradesmen and clerks), which later became Hurstpierpoint College; and also St. Saviour's School (for the lower middle classes - farmers, mechanics,shopkeepers), which became Ardingly College. In his lifetime, Nathaniel Woodard founded 11 schools, although there are now 40 schools in the Woodard Corporation.

The foundation stone to Lancing Chapel was laid in 1868, but it was not completed in Woodard's lifetime. The West End was dedicated in 1911, 20 years after his death; work continued after that and the whole chapel was eventually dedicated by Prince Charles in 1978, the year in which the first girls' House was opened.

Woodard came to Henfield in 1862 when he bought Martyn's Lodge. Sadly Mrs. Pennington couldn't shed any light on the story concerning the Cat House and Bob Ward: that Woodard's cat killed Ward's canary, and over time, it is said that Ward strung up metal cats and shells which jangled when Woodard walked past and also fired his gun out of the zulu hole at Woodard. Cats, of course, feature heavily in the pagan protection of houses (indeed, a mummified cat was found in the structure of the old Henfield workhouse) and so the story concerning the Cat House may be no more than very interesting heresay. The sun sign over the door of the cat house is incidentally another protection device of the property, it quotes a policy number with the Sun Alliance insurance company, which dates from 1705.

Apart from the mention of his will, with the main bequests to his wife, and "13 cottages in Henfield" to his daughter, sadly no further information on his connection to the village was forthcoming, which perhaps left too many questions unanswered.

This is perhaps another of those areas where the Group itself may continue its own research in the future.