In 1891 he accepted the living at
Cadney, 10 miles from his birthplace, where he stayed until 1920 and developed a reputation as a naturalist. This was a poor, sparsely populated parish; since Woodruffe-Peacock had to visit his widely scattered parishioners on foot, he became by inclination and necessity a tremendous walker, which afforded him the opportunity to make regular observations and to record the natural changes occurring over a limited area. His profile in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that his routes contained some of the best observed and documented habitats in the country. He took a leading role in the foundation of the
Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union in 1893, serving as organizing secretary in 1895 and president in 1905. He was the prime mover in establishing a museum for Lincolnshire, his extensive herbarium forming an integral part of its original collections and the foundation of the city and county museum's herbarium. He was elected a fellow of both the
Linnean Society and the
Geological Society in 1895. He also appreciated the mechanisms of
dispersal, a neglected aspect of British ecology, which he approached through the careful study of
microhabitats. The two eventually met on a field trip to
Mildenhall in
Suffolk and, surprisingly, since Tansley was an avowed
atheist, became close friends. By this point Woodruffe-Peacock had been working on a detailed study,
Rock-soil flora of Lincolnshire, for many years, and Tansley, impressed, offered to contribute £300 towards its publication. Owing to poor health, Woodruffe-Peacock was never able to make the necessary revisions and only a small section was ever published, the rest of the manuscript passing into the archives of
Cambridge University Library. According to Brian J. Ford, these extensive notes show him to be ahead of his time in his approach to natural history. ==Personal==