He was the nephew of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the magistrate who was murdered in 1678 after receiving Titus Oates's depositions concerning the Popish Plot.
[1] 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.
[1] At the 1713 general election Godfrey was defeated in the City of London constituency on the platform of an anti-French commercial treaty.
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 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.