Henry Godfrey (1824–1882) was an early 19th-century pioneer / settler of Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. He was born at

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

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(now Chennai, India) on 4 June 1824, the son of Major John Race Godfrey, an East India Company man, and his wife Jane Octavia, née Woodhouse. Godfrey arrived in

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

in 1843 as a young man of 19 years on the ship the Duke of Roxburgh, in company with

Francis Russell Nixon Francis Russell Nixon (August 18037 April 1879) was a British Anglican bishop who served as the first Bishop of Tasmania, Australia. Early life and ministry Nixon was the son of Robert Nixon, a priest and amateur painter of North Cray, Kent. N ...

, 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 was also an accomplished amateur sketcher and his sketchbook, now in the

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, contains hundreds of sketches from the voyage and the colonies, as well as some from England. The collection forms a significant pictorial record of the early colonial period of Port Phillip (Victoria) and Aboriginal life of the period. Godfrey established himself on the Gobur Station on the

Goulburn River (Victoria) The Goulburn River, a major inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the alpine, Northern Country/North Central, and Southern Riverina regions of the Australian state of 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. His eldest son, Henry Polwhele, returned to Australia in 1874, where he died in 1917. 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 St Clements, Truro,

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. 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

References

*Henry Godfrey sketchboo

*Rosemary Petheram, ''Down Under from Devon'', Durham: The Pentland Press Limited, 1993 {{DEFAULTSORT:Godfrey, Henry 1824 births 1882 deaths History of Victoria (state) People from the Madras Presidency British people in colonial India