Waynflete, William (c. 1400-1486)

English cleric and schoolteacher. Headmaster of Winchester College from 1430, he moved in 1441 to the new royal foundation of Eton College, of which he became provost. Royal favour secured his next, and most prestigious, appointments as bishop of Winchester from 1447 and chancellor 1456-60. He used his episcopal position to endow a foundation at his old university, Oxford: first established as a Hall in 1448, Magdalen College was founded in 1458.

He later added to this foundation a school to prepare boys for college; its grammar teaching, under its headmaster John Anwykyll, introduced elements of the studia humanitatis.