Career
He was a Whig supporter, and influential through his newspaper, the Sherborne Mercury. His publishing business was large for a small provincial centre, and his Sherborne Mercury was an influential journal in South West England. He also published from 1744 The Western Flying Post, amalgamated into the Mercury in 1748.
Goadby made enemies as well as friends by his plain speaking and views.
He died after a long illness on 12 August 1778, and was buried in Oborne. He was a religious man and naturalist, and bequeathed an endowment providing for the preaching of a sermon on the first Sunday of May in every year in Sherborne Church on the beauties of nature.
As the endowment became too valuable for its purposes, provision for the poor was made with the surplus. His major production was the Illustration of the Holy Scriptures, in three large folio volumes (1759).
Apology for the of Bamfylde Moore Carew was printed by Goadby in 1749, and was often reprinted.
Other works published by Goadby were The Universe Displayed, A Rational Catechism on the Principles of Religion drawn from the Mind itself, and Goadby"s British Biography.