Peter Godfrey (1665–1724) was a British merchant and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

from 1715 to 1724. Godfrey was the second son of Michael Godfrey, merchant of London, and his wife Anna Maria Chamberlain, daughter of Sir Thomas Chamberlain of

Woodford, Essex Woodford is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located north-east of Charing Cross. Woodford historically formed an ancient parish in the county of Essex. It contained a string of agrarian villages and ...

. He was the nephew of Sir

Edmund Berry Godfrey Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (23 December 1621 – 12 October 1678) was an English magistrate whose mysterious death caused anti-Catholic uproar in England. Contemporary documents also spell the name Edmundbury Godfrey. Early life Edmund Berry God ...

, the magistrate who was murdered in 1678 after receiving

Titus Oates Titus Oates (15 September 1649 – 12/13 July 1705) was an English priest who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II. Early life Titus Oates was born at Oakham in Rutland. His father was the Baptis ...

's depositions concerning the

Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinat ...

. Peter's elder brother Michael Godfrey was one of the founders of, and the first Deputy Governor of, the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

. Godfrey married by licence dated 29 October 1692, Catherine Goddard, daughter of Thomas Goddard, merchant, of Nun's Court, Coleman Street, London. She died in 1706, and he married as his second wife Catherine Pennyman, daughter of Sir Thomas Pennyman, 2nd Baronet, of Ormesby, Yorkshire. Godfrey succeeded his brother Michael in July 1695 when the latter was killed by a stray cannon shot while surveying the scene at the Siege of Namur.Luttrell, ''Historical Relation of State Affairs'', 1857, iii 503
/ref> He was a Director of the Bank of England from 1695 to 1698, and a Director of the New East India Company from 1698 to 1699. He was a Director of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

from 1710 to 1714 and from 1715 to 1718. At the 1713 general election Godfrey was defeated in the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

constituency on the platform of an anti-French commercial treaty. He was returned for that constituency at the 1715 general election, and was classed as a Whig in one list of the Parliament and as a

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

in another. He voted against the Government in all recorded

divisions Division may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication * Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting of 10,000 t ...

. In November 1721, he presented a petition from the owners of redeemable stock asking that the two million pounds owed to the Government by the

South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially: The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in Ja ...

should be used to compensate them for their losses, but it was unsuccessful. In January 1722, he supported a motion for the repeal of the clauses of the Quarantine Act that gave emergency powers to the Government. He was re-elected for the City of London at the 1722 general election. Godfrey died on 10 November 1724. He had six sons and a daughter by his first wife.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Godfrey, Peter 1665 births 1724 deaths 18th-century British merchants Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1715–1722 British MPs 1722–1727 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for the City of London