Frederick DuCane Godman DCL FRS FLS FGS FRGS FES FZS MRI FRHS (15 January 1834 – 19 February 1919) was an English lepidopterist, entomologist and ornithologist.

Frederick was sent to study at Eton College in 1844 but left three years later due to poor health and was educated at home by private tutors.

[2] At the age of 18 he went with his tutor on a trip around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea visiting southern Spain, Athens and Constantinople.

Both Salvin and Godman spent time learning to skin and mount birds at Baker's taxidermy shop on the Trumpington Road.

Godman left Salvin in Belize due to a fever and returned home via the Atlantic coast.

They visited Bombay, Delhi, Allan Octavian Hume at Simla, Calcutta and then travelled east to Sikkim.

This monumental work Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879–1915) was to grow into a 63 volume encyclopaedia on the natural history of Central America.

The work was made possible by a number of other collaborators including Richard Bowdler Sharpe and George Charles Champion.

Other works by Godman included The Natural History of the Azores (1870) and a two-volume Monograph of the Petrels (1907–10) with plates by J. G. Keulemans.

The British Ornithologists' Union instituted the Godman-Salvin Medal for contributions to ornithology while a memorial to Godman and Salvin was constructed and is exhibited in the Natural History Museum.

Along with his second wife, later Dame Alice Mary Godman (1868–1944, who became deputy president of the British Red Cross Society), he travelled to the West Indies and through Africa.

[15] His collection of more than 600 pieces of Islamic pottery was transferred to the British Museum through the will of his younger daughter, Catherine, who died in 1982.

[6] Godman died on 19 February 1919 at 45 Pont Street, London, and was laid to rest in Cowfold, Sussex.