Mudford was born in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, London, on 8 January 1782. He later joined the
Morning Chronicle as a parliamentary reporter. Departing from the
Chronicle he was employed first as assistant editor, and then as the editor of the
Courier which at the time was an influential evening journal on par with the
Times. After he came to a disagreement with the owners of the
Courier over policy matters, Mudform resigned from the journal and issued a letter justifying his actions. His letter drew a lot of attention at the time. In the aftermath of his departure the
Courier lost readership and eventually closed while attempts at inviting Mudford back at the journal proved unsuccessful.
John H. Collins, analysing the influence of Mudford's work, comments that "the Shroud story is a first rate piece of writing comparable to the best half-dozen works by Poe" and that "it should not just be dismissed as a mere potboiler which the genius of Poe transformed." He goes on to mention that he thinks many readers mistakenly think that the "Iron Shroud" is one of Poe's works thus further strengthening Poe's reputation by attributing to him a story that he actually plagiarised. Mudford died at 5
Harrington Square,
Hampstead Road, on 10 March 1848, leaving a widow and eight children. His second son,
William Heseltine Mudford, became the editor of the
Standard in 1894. In Mudford's obituary, appearing in the June 1848 issue of
Gentleman's Magazine, his abilities as the editor of the Courier were praised. The entry on Mudford for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography appeared in 2004, written by David Finkelstein. ==Selected works==