George S. Godwin was born in London, England, the youngest boy of a large family, and was only three years old when his father died.
[2] In September 1911 Godwin, then age 22, left for British Columbia, Canada,[3] where one of his brothers managed a real estate agency.
[4] George Godwin was employed as "real estate broker" with the agency, but that ended with the arrival of his future wife, Dorothy Alicia Purdon from Ireland.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Godwin wanted to join the Canadian armed forces, but was rejected for active service because of poor eyesight.
He returned with his wife and son to England in 1915,[7] where he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force after all and embarked for France in September 1916 with the 29th Vancouver Battalion.
In December 1918, diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, he was shipped to Canada and placed in the Balfour Military Sanatorium in the West Kootenay, BC, for recovery.
His efforts in publishing, started in the mid 1930s under the style The Acorn Press, ended because of the paper shortage of the war years.