Talk by Maurice Godbold at TIGFA Reunion June 21-23, 2002 in Marion, South Carolina

First I would like to take this public opportunity of saying on behalf of

Margot and myself how pleased we are to be back again in Marion. Our

previous visit was prompted by my interest in finding out more about "Old

John" and his descendants and we had an excellent holiday broadly following

the route that some of the descendants must have followed as they migrated

SE. We had a great deal of hospitality and help in a holiday full of happy

coincidence including for starters meeting an ex University of Oxford

Rhodes Scholar at the Comfort Inn as we registered (not Bill Clinton) who

knew Federal Judge John Godbold. Also Margot found out about the

Richardson-Godbold Mansion whilst out shopping for clothes for our

grandchildren. However, in the interests of the economy of your various

households I am not recommending that the husbands here send out their

wives shopping in order to do genealogical research. Never have I before

or since known shopping to be so genealogical useful.

At the outset, I have to say that I know of no direct connection between my

branch of the Godbolds and that of "Old John." We come from the same broad

area of Suffolk so there must be one, perhaps predating the establishment

of Parish Records or, perhaps, among the many records that have been lost

or damaged. Much of my research has been an attempt to establish

connections between the Godbolds who were around at the time of OJ without

as much success as I would have liked.

For that reason and because we are likely to share origins I have elected

to give some attention to these origins and comment on some early Gs. Thus

the book I have put together has sections on the origins of the name and

early Godbolds, Godbolds and Manors, the Coat of Arms, some notable

Godbolds and others (me), plus a comment on Little Bealings. This talk is

a comment on the texts.

The Origins of the Name

Although the practice of using family names began quite early in Western

Europe - about the year 1000 in France and a bit later in England - it was

not until the 13th century that the practice began to be common. So the

early use of the Godbold name and its variants was probably mainly as a

given name. When I first started this genealogy business, I heard all

sorts of stories about the origins of the name. That it was Viking, German,

came over to England with the Norman invasion of 1066, that it came from

Denmark because a Danish King threw them out for making a nuisance of

themselves and even that it was Huguenot. With the exception of the last

there seem to be elements of truth in all these statements plus a little

confusion.

From the literature on the subject it seems safe to conclude that the name,

in its original Godebald form, is of Teutonic origin, probably specifically

Frankish. From this basic source it spread sometime after the third

Century AD through what are now France and Germany.

One of the earliest known references to the name in England is of an

English bishop called Godebald who was a missionary to Denmark on behalf of

King Canute (995-1035). He became Bishop of Rosskilde and died in 1021.

Godebald became Godbold, Godebold or Godbolt in English but there is a

later reference to Godebald in Norfolk in 1166.

The Early Godbolds

Morant in his "History and Antiquities of Essex", published in 1740, says

there was a Godbold in Essex at the time of Edward the Confessor

(1022-1066). The Domesday Survey of 1088, commissioned by William the

Conqueror for taxation purposes, has three references to Godbolds including

one, which for me is rather ambiguous. It says two Frenchman held the

Hockley Manor and is written in such a way to suggest one of them was

Godbald. This lends credence to the story that the name, although already

in England, also came with the Normans.

At the time of the Survey, the name was also in Bedfordshire and in Devon,

where, according to one reference, it could have, in Devon, been used as a

surname or in another, as a given name. It is said to have been probably

the name of an Anglo-Saxon who may have done William some favours as he

held, I think, 14 manors. There are no references to Godbold in the

Suffolk Doomsday Book.

Morant gives a descent of the Godbold he thought was in Essex before

Doomsday. His son was the founder, in 1135, of a Priory at Little

Horkesley in Essex and the latter's grandson as Sir Philip, was said to

have gone on the Third Crusade with Richard the Lion Heart (1189-1199).

There is possibly some confusion of dates here with the Wiston Church Guide

and Morant as the former talks of Robert Godbold giving the Church to the

Cluniac monks 1135 in order to pay for the Priory of Little Horkesley. It

is perhaps unlikely but not impossible that the first Richard's son would

be alive in 1135, if his father was alive and active in the period up to

1066.

Before leaving the early Godbolds, I draw your attention to the story that

there was supposed to have been miracle cure of the lameness of two Godbold

sisters of Boxley in the County of Kent at the shrine of Thomas a'Becket at

Canterbury and this is commemorated in a stained glass window in the

cathedral there.

There is also the story of a Saint Godbold in the West Country in

Gloucestershire. He does not appear in the existing list of Catholic

Saints and was possibly unofficial. On the other hand his name may have

been lost in the turmoil following the Dissolution of the Monasteries under

Henry VIII.

Godbolds and Manors

I have seen some comment that the Godbolds had extensive holdings of Manors

(the feudal system of land ownership thought to have arisen out of the

need for common people to have the protection of a powerful individual in

return for labour services which were gradually commuted to money

payments). This may have been so in Devon at the time of Domesday but I do

not think this is particularly so elsewhere. Copinger in his Manors of

Suffolk mentions five Manors in Suffolk that have Godbold connections in

terms of their ownership. Of the five manors mentioned, the father of the

Robert Godebold who founded the Priory at Little Horkesley held Wiston or

Wissinton before Domesday. At Domesday it was held by the Great Suein

(Sheriff) of Essex. A daughter of the owner of Livermore married Richard

Godbold Rector of Sudbury (see later} whose son John of Bury St Edmunds

(see later) married the daughter of Thomas Discipline, thereby acquiring

the Manor of Pakenham which he later sold. In another case, Sir William

Godbold's second marriage (again see later) was to the widow of the owner

of Wicken Skeith, who passed it to her eldest son by her first marriage.

In the fifth case, the daughter of a Nicholas Godbold of Badingham,

Marjery, married a William Dade who appears to have been a part owner of

the Manor of Cransford but it was out of their hands by 1577.

I suspect the Godbold who was the largest landowner was John Godbold who

acquired Topingho Hall in Essex by marriage and, according to his will

owned the manor of Costen Hall in Norfolk, which he left to his son,

Richard.

It does seem that Godbold ownership of Manors was somewhat brief but not

necessarily unusual in this respect. It also seems to have been based

substantially on successful marriages.

The Coat of Arms

To be properly entitled to a Coat of Arms descent must be proved from an

ancestor in the official record of the College of Arms. As I was

interested in Sir William Godbold (see later) I inquired about how he got

his title but, curiously, no record of his entitlement exists. There is no

reason to suppose he was not a genuine knight so the records must be

incomplete.

The first record of the Godbold Coat of Arms is contained in the list of

Arms thought to have been compiled by Thomas Wall, Garter King of Arms, who

died in 1536 so they would have been in existence before that date. A

common theme to all versions, official and unofficial, is crossed longbows

on an azure background giving credence to the view that some of them were

connected with or were archers and archers and armourers.

The Records show that four Godbold families are entitled to Arms.

1 John Godbold of Essex already referred to as owner of the Manor of Costen

2 Nicholas Godbold of Badingham whose daughter married a Dade owner of the

Manor of Cransford

3 John Godbold who was a Serjeant at Law (see later)

4 A G B Godbold of the 18th century, provenance unknown

. I do not know whether there are any known survivors of John Godbold of

Essex neither do I know if Nicholas Godbold had any sons. The family of

John the Serjeant died out and, as already indicated, G B Godbold remains a

mystery

Notable Godbolds and Others.

To some extent researching the Godbolds is easy in that it is an unusual

name and they were, in the early days at least, very much confined to East

Anglia, especially Suffolk. My main aim initially was to trace my

ancestors as far back as possible, which has meant concentrating on the

early ones. The main problem has been that they appear as family groups

for two or three generations and then disappear from the records of the

parish in which they were found. Alternatively they appear as individuals

whose relationship to others is not clear. Thus I have 8 separate databases

between which the precise connections are not clear but it is obvious that

they exist in most cases.

However, using the alumni of Cambridge University, perhaps quixotically, as

a starting point and taking into account information gathered from wills,

parish records and references scattered through the literature one can

establish which the main groups were in the 16th and 17th centuries were

and where the main connections may have been.

Nine Godbolds attended Cambridge University between 1261 and 1900, one of

the two oldest Universities in the country. The earliest was Henry

Godbold of Dennington, who traces back to a William Godbold whose will is

the oldest surviving G, will I know of. His descendants are thought by

some researchers to include OJ. This Henry was evidently a distinguished

scholar being a Fellow of Peterhouse for 23 years but he never married

Interestingly there are family relationships among the rest. The already

mentioned Serjeant at Law John Godbold entered Caius in 1599, trained as a

lawyer at Grays Inn, was Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely, Member of

Parliament for Bury St Edmunds and a Judge of Common Pleas. He and a Mr

Woodward were paid £130.00 (about $15,000 in today's money) for the trial

of witches at Bury St Edmunds of whom 18 were sentenced to death and 120

suspects were kept in gaol. His son Thomas, who died young, also went to

Cambridge, as well as his nephew Sir William who was clearly a scholarly

man as shewn by the tablet he had erected in Mendham Church, paid for by

the £50.00 (currently $5,000.00) he left in his will for the purpose.

There was a dispute about his lands between the Bohuns and his great niece,

Dorothy, a descendant of Serjeant John. Dorothy, I think, ultimately won.

Sir William was connected with the Godbolds of Worlingworth including, as a

William G also of that village who was a potential beneficiary of his will

but seems to have died before he could benefit. It is likely that the John

Godbold son of James Godbold of Worlingworth, who went up to Magdalene in 1729 was

connected to the other Godbolds of Worlingworth.

Sir William may well have had family connections with the Westhall Gs as he

was paying Hearth tax on seven hearths in Westhall in 1674. The three sons

of the John G of this group, who owned Costen Manor, namely Anthony, John

and Richard all went up Cambridge in the 1650s. Two, John and Richard were

admitted as pensioners of Queens as late as 1684.

The last person on the list is Richard G who went up in 1711. He, inter

alia, was a priest at Ely and vicar of All Saints at Sudbury and was

descended from the Westhall Gs. His son, John went to Oxford and was a

Captain in the Western Regiment of Militia, a Deputy Lieutenant of the

County, a Justice of the Peace, a Trustee of the Bury St Edmund Charity

Trust and a keen botanist.

These data show that there were connections between the three main groups

of Gs that I have in my 8 data bases, namely the Fressingfield group,

so-called because that is the village in which they were first noted. This

includes John, the Serjeant at Law and Sir William; the Westhall Group

which includes the three sons of John who owned Topingho Hall and the Manor

of Costen, plus Richard the Vicar of Sudbury and his son John, the JP etc.

of Bury St Edmunds and the Worlingworth Group via Sir William's will. This

period covers the time of OJ's birth. during which there were several

notable Godbolds. For the rest, the wills they left indicate that many of

them were yeomen with a few described as "gent" i.e. of independent means.

OJ himself, if the suppositions about his English origins are correct, came

from an essentially yeoman farmer family.

I would like to draw your attention to another notable G of the 18th

century, namely Nathaniel G. about whom there is a separate note in my

green file. He does not belong to the main stream and has received a

rather bad press from modern researchers on the grounds that he was a

seller of quack medicine. This is to judge him by modern medical

standards. His origins have not been found. He was once described as a

man of little learning but was actually very much an agreeable man and very

much an entrepreneurial character. He is one of my favourite Gs.

He started as a baker in the town of Bungay in North Suffolk, founded a

theatre there but is best known for inventing Godbolds Balsam based on

syrup of figs, raisins, stem ginger, a little honey and an extract from a

fungus that only grows on oak trees. As a horse medicine, its original

purpose, it was so apparently successful in curing a horse belonging to

Lord Lothian, that his Lordship became his sponsor and an attempt was made

to launch the product on a countrywide basis. This failed. It was then

suggested to Nathaniel that it should be sold as a human medicine. This

was endorsed by notable people and commercially successful, so much so that

he was able to buy Westwood Park in Surrey, from a General Oglethorpe, who

you may be pleased to know. was a very unsuccessful General during the

American Revolution.

Now for the others or my family. As the maps in the Green Book show, my

family is very much confined to Suffolk. I am the first for eight

generations in my direct line to leave Suffolk, albeit temporarily. The

main centre of activity is in a village called Metfield where the family

has been established for more than 200 years. The most successful of the

group was my grandfather who, starting from small beginnings, was said to

have acquired or rented 1000 acres before he died in 1930. I have not

been able to establish when all this land was acquired because he put much

of it into the names of his sons, all of whom were farmers. The origins

of the family group are in Brundish, a small village not far from the

villages mentioned in the section on notable G's, although Westhall is a

bit more distant.. I can trace back to my 5 greats grandfather Robert

Godbold, who was a cooper and farmer in Brundish who, I think but I am not

absolutely sure, married three times. There are earlier but unconnected

references to G's in the pre-1700 records for Brundish, which may or may

not indicate earlier connection with that parish. There was also a group

of Godbolds in Saxtead Green and Earl Soham whose dates and given names fit

with my 5 greats grandfather family. Because of the Saxted Green

connection, this group may be related to the Godbolds who, much later, went

to Australia from Saxtead Green. Be that as it may, I have not been able

to trace my family beyond about 1680 with certainty when my 5 greats

grandfather would have been born.

My 4 greats grandfather, Simon, was the son of the second wife and although

the executor of his father's will, he didn't inherit anything. I suspect

he became a farm labourer .He brought his second wife and family to

Metfield where his descendants became carpenters, brick makers and farmers,

with the farming part ultimately becoming dominant. To-day, my youngest

cousin Terry, has almost 700 acres in Metfield, which is all that survives

of the Godbold lands.

Little Bealings

I hope some of you will have been able to read the note on Little Bealings

and will have seen the photographs, as these should provide a lead into

Ed's talk on "Old John".

Maurice Godbold

Modified 07/07/02 09:08:23