William Woodall was a British Liberal politician, philanthropist, and supporter of women’s suffrage. He was educated at the Crescent Congregational Schools in Liverpool. He then trained at the Liverpool Gas Company, as a gas engineer. After marrying, he lived in Longport and worked as a Sunday School teacher. He became business partners with his father-in-law, operating a china works at the Washington Works in Burslem. He was Chairman of the Burslem School Board from 1868 to 1880, and served periods as secretary of the Wedgwood Institute Committee and Chairman of the North Staffordshire Society for Promotion of the Welfare of the Deaf and Dumb. In 1880 he became MP for Stoke-upon-Trent, a position he held until 1885. He consequently represented Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, until 1900. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Technical Education from 1881 to 1884. In 1886 he was Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, and he was Financial Secretary to the War Office from 1892 to 1895. He was a part of the Care of Blind and Deaf Mutes Royal Commission from 1886 to 1889. He was a commissioner of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction. He was a major supporter of women’s suffrage in the House of Commons; he became leader of the women’s suffrage party in 1884 and presented many, ultimately unsuccessful, bills that argued for women’s suffrage.