William, a younger son of the wealthy John Uvedale, was educated with his older brother Thomas at Winchester College, the foundation with which his family had longstanding and close connexions. His father set aside for his inheritance the family manor of Brownwich, which in November 1434 John conveyed to feoffees headed by their distant kinsman Reynold West, Lord de la Warre, and including his nephew Reynold Peckham*, Richard Dallingridge* and William himself. It passed into William’s sole possession before 1444. In that year ten pokes of wool of unknown ownership were discovered hidden under straw in a barn of his ‘on the sea coast’, awaiting shipment overseas without due payment of customs. It is unclear whether Uvedale himself was being accused of wool-smuggling, or if it was his servants who had made the discovery.
Although the sheriff of Surrey and Sussex appointed in February 1430 was called ‘the younger’, it is far more likely that William’s uncle, William I*, took up the office, for the uncle then occupied the family manor of Titsey in Surrey, and was in any case a figure of greater consequence. The younger man attested the parliamentary election indentures for Hampshire in 1442, 1447 and 1450 (on all three occasions in the company of his brother Thomas, and on the second also with his nephew, Henry*), and his diligent service on ad hoc commissions of local government began in the meantime. His brother was present at the shire court at Winchester for his election to the first Parliament of 1449.
The pattern of Uvedale’s career reveals no particular bias towards either Lancaster or York, for his appointments to commissions continued regardless of the political changes of the 1450s and 1460s. In November 1461, during the early months of Edward IV’s reign, he joined his brother in standing surety under a pain of £100 for Reynold Uvedale†, his nephew, the newly-appointed escheator of Hampshire, guaranteeing that he would diligently perform his office and render full accounts at the Exchequer. William was in a position to advise his nephew, for he himself had filled the post a few years earlier. Although he was not formally appointed to the Hampshire bench, he nevertheless presided with his brother over sessions of the peace held at Winchester at Easter 1462. He was listed for jury service there in 1466, but not pricked in the event. Uvedale once more attended the parliamentary elections at the shire court in 1467, then witnessing the returns of his nephews, Reynold and Henry, for the county and Portsmouth, respectively.
The Uvedales’ standing in the locality inevitably led to their involvement in the landed transactions of their neighbours and other members of the gentry. Both William and his brother were feoffees of manors in Sussex for their late father’s friend Richard Dallingridge, and he acted in a similar capacity for the lawyer Richard Holt* and for members of the Wallop family.
Little is recorded about William’s own private life, although he may have married for a second time, if he is the man described in December 1472 as husband of Sir Thomas Chetwode’s sister and heir Elizabeth, who then made a release of the manor of Preston in Banstead, Surrey.
Uvedale died before Michaelmas 1477, by which date his elder son, Thomas, had taken possession of his lands at Bishops Waltham, Meon and elsewhere, as well as of the manor of Brownwich. Thomas also succeeded him as parker of Bishops Waltham, being granted the post for life by Waynflete in April following, in consideration of his fidelity, prudence and industry. He had represented Portsmouth in the Parliament assembled earlier that year, on 16 Jan. 1478.