his battalion to Gibraltar. He marched with the light company, as part of a provisional light battalion, from Gibraltar to Tarifa, and took part in the first defence. He was a volunteer under Lord Blayney in the attempt on Fuengarola, near Malaga. He commanded a detachment of two flank companies of his battalion at Cadiz, at the second defence of Tarifa, and at the battle of Barossa, where he was severely wounded. For his Peninsular services he was made brevet-major and C.B. In May 1814 he was appointed major in the old 5th West India regiment, and in November 1815 lieutenant-colonel of the 41st foot. Godwin took that regiment out to India in 1822, accompanied it to Burmah in 1824, and was present in every action in the first Burmese war, from the capture of Rangoon until peace was signed in sight of Ummeerapoora in February 1826, except during the latter part of 1824, when he was employed with a detached force in reducing the Burmese province of Martaban. Godwin twice received the thanks of the governor-general in council for his services. He exchanged to half-pay in 1827, became colonel in 1837, and major-general in 1846. In 1850 he was appointed to a divisional command in Bengal, and in 1852 was selected for the command of the Bengal division of the Burmese expeditionary force, of which he took the command in chief. The second Burmese war began with the bombardment of Martaban on 5 April 1852. In November Godwin recaptured Pegu, and in December the annexation of the province of Pegu to India was proclaimed by Lord Dalhousie. Further operations followed at Prome and in the Rangoon river, and on 1 July 1853 the expeditionary force, known officially as the ‘army of Ava,’ was broken up, and Godwin returned to India. His personal activity, in spite of his years, had been remarked throughout, and he was a great favourite with the troops; but the protracted character of the later operations had drawn upon him much undeserved abuse from certain portions of the English and Indian press. He appears to have acted throughout in accordance with the instructions of Lord Dalhousie, by whom his conduct was fully approved. On Godwin's return to India, he was appointed to command the Sirhind division of the Bengal army. He died at Simla, at the residence of the commander-in-chief, Sir William Gomm, who had been his brother subaltern in the 9th foot, on 26 Oct. 1853, at the age of sixty-nine, from the results of exposure and over-exertion in Burmah. Notification of his appointments as K.C.B. and colonel 20th foot was received in India after his death. His only daughter married Robert A. C. Godwin-Austen [q. v.]
[Hart's Army Lists; London Gazettes; Gent. Mag. new ser. xli. 529. A useful epitome of the history of the first and second Burmese wars will be found in Low's Hist. Indian Navy.]
GODWIN, Mrs. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759–1797), miscellaneous writer, born 27 April 1759, was granddaughter of a rich Spitalfields manufacturer of Irish extraction. Her father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, spent the fortune which he had inherited, tried farming, took to drinking, bullied his wife, and rambled to various places, sinking lower at each move. By his wife, Elizabeth Dixon, an Irishwoman (d. 1780), he had six children. Edward, the eldest, was an attorney in the city of London. There were three daughters, Mary, Everina, and Eliza; and two other sons. Mary and Eliza had much talent, though little education. Mary in 1778 became companion to a Mrs. Dawson. In 1780 her mother died, and the sisters, finding their father's house intolerable, resolved to become teachers. Mary went to live with a friend, Fanny Blood, whose father was as great a scamp as Wollstonecraft, and who helped to support her family by painting. Her mother, Mrs. Blood, took in needlework, in which Mary Wollstonecraft helped her. Everina Wollstonecraft kept house for her brother Edward; and Eliza, although still very young, accepted a Mr. Bishop, in order to escape misery at home. Bishop's brutality made her wretched. Her life is described in her sister's ‘Wrongs of Women.’ Mrs. Bishop went into hiding till a legal separation was arranged, when about 1783 she set up a school at Newington Green with Mary Wollstonecraft. It lingered for two years. During this period she acquired some friends, and was kindly received, shortly before his death, by Dr. Johnson. Fanny Blood, who lived with the sisters for a time, married Hugh Skeys, a merchant, and settled in Lisbon. She died in childbed soon afterwards (29 Nov. 1785). Mary went out to nurse her, but arrived too late. After her return she wrote a pamphlet called ‘Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,’ for which Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard, gave her 10l. 10s. She then became governess (October 1787) in the family of Lord Kingsborough, afterwards Earl of Kingston. She thought him a coarse squire and his wife a mere fine lady. Lady Kingsborough was jealous of the children's affection for their governess, and dismissed her after a year. She then settled in London, showed a story called ‘Mary’ to Johnson, and was employed by him as reader and in
