Background
He was born at Madras, India (now Chennai, India) on the 4th of June 1824, the son of Colonel John Race Godfrey, an East India Company man, and his wife Jane Octavia, née Woodhouse.
He was born at Madras, India (now Chennai, India) on the 4th of June 1824, the son of Colonel John Race Godfrey, an East India Company man, and his wife Jane Octavia, née Woodhouse.
Godfrey arrived in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in 1843 as a young man of 19 years on the ship the Duke of Roxburgh, in company with Francis Russell Nixon, the first Bishop of Tasmania. He subsequently made his way to Victoria and settled on a number of pastoral runs or properties. An amateur on the violincello, Godfrey accompanied the singing of hymns on the voyage out, much to the delight of Mrs Nixon.
The collection forms a significant pictorial record of the early colonial period of Portuguese Phillip (Victoria) and Aboriginal life of the period.
Godfrey established himself on the Gobur Station on the Goulburn River (Victoria), the Boort Station on the Loddon River (Victoria), and owned the Nangunia Station near Berrigan in New South Wales, returning to England in 1864, where he died in London in 1882. Henry"s brother, Frederic Race Godfrey, purchased Pevensey Station near Hay in New South Wales and remained in the colony where he became prominent for his public service.
Godfrey married Mary Polwhele in 1853 at Street Clements, Truro, Cornwall. They had five children:
Henry Polwhele Godfrey, born 17 May 1854 in Exeter
Clarence Polwhele Godfrey, born 14 September 1855 in Exeter
Ernest William Godfrey, born 28 December 1856 in Melbourne
Bertram Godfrey, born 1860 at Boort Station, Victoria
Charles Montague Godfrey, born 29 April 1865 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
