GODDARD, Vincent (1612-55), of Howbery, Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxon.

Little is known about Vincent Goddard before his nomination to the 1653 Parliament, or indeed thereafter. What can be said is that he was born at Reading in 1612. The trade of his father, Richard, is not known, although the previous year he had been one of the surveyors of the highways for his parish, St Mary’s. He had also contributed 2s towards the repair of the church clock and 20 years later he would serve as one of the churchwardens.10The Churchwardens’ Accts. of the par. of St Mary’s, Reading, Berks. 1550-1662, ed. F.N.A. Garry and A.G. Garry (Reading, 1893), 112, 116, 147-9. Vincent was a name sometimes used as a forename by the Goddards of Ogborne St George in Wiltshire and by their cadet branch of Carlton in Bedfordshire, so some distant connection with those families cannot be ruled out.11Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 111-12; VCH Beds. iii. 50, 60; Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 69, 70, 304, 362. The future MP may also have been related to the Berkshire man of that name who disclaimed the right to bear arms during the 1623 heralds’ visitations.12Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi-lvii), ii. 1. Another Vincent Goddard, who was described as being a yeoman, is recorded at Thatcham in 1654.13Berks. Overseers’ Pprs. 1654-1834, ed. P. Durrant (Berks. Rec. Soc. iii), 222. The future MP had three brothers, George, Daniel and Richard, and, as those were probably the boys baptised at St Mary’s between 1617 and 1634, Vincent is likely to have been the eldest son.14PROB11/271/362; St Mary, Reading par. reg. Daniel was certainly younger than Vincent.15Vis. Berks. ii. 38. Richard grew up to become a clothier, which is perhaps the best clue as to how the other male members of the family earned a living.16PROB11/307/157.

That Goddard became associated with the Wallingford area can presumably be explained, at least in part, by his marriage to Mary Farmer, who was from Cholsey, a village two miles to the south of that town. By the 1650s Goddard was living at Howbery, immediately across the Thames from Wallingford and therefore just within Oxfordshire. However, he also owned land at Woolhampton in the far south of the county between Reading and Newbury.17PROB11/271/362. By then he was emerging for the first time as a local officeholder. Nothing is known about his political activities during the 1640s, but it would be reasonable to assume that he had supported Parliament. In August 1650 he was appointed as one of the new captains of foot in the Berkshire militia and two months later he was promoted to become a major.18CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 510, 512. His brother Richard was similarly appointed as a militia captain the following year.19CSP Dom. 1651, p. 513. In December 1652, Vincent was included on the Berkshire assessment commission.20A. and O. All this indicates that he was a willing supporter of the new republic, although that alone cannot explain his nomination to Parliament in 1653, so one must presume that his religious views were deemed to be suitably radical to justify his selection.

One clear theme emerges from Goddard’s known activity in the Nominated Parliament. His only committee appointment was to that for prisons and prisoners, to which he was named on 20 July 1653.21CJ vii. 287b. It fell to him to report to the House from that committee on 2 November on the business concerning the creditors of the late Sir Peter Temple*. Temple had died earlier that year leaving vast debts and an underage son and heir, Sir Richard Temple*, on whom the family estates had been entailed. Such were the legal complexities involved that the family and the creditors had asked Parliament to legislate to clarify exactly who was owed what. Parliament asked the prisons committee to draft the necessary bill, with Goddard being instructed to manage this.22CJ vii. 344b-345a. Later that month Goddard was again asked to report from that committee.23CJ vii. 353a. He never did so and Parliament never got to consider any proposals before the dissolution. Goddard was otherwise notable only as one of those MPs of thought to be against public support for a learned ministry, which probably means that he was opposed to an established church.24Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 418.

Goddard died late in 1655. In a list of men appointed to the Berkshire commission for securing the peace of the commonwealth that William Goffe* sent to John Thurloe early in December 1655, the word ‘dead’ appears after Goddard’s name.25TSP iv. 285. The main beneficiaries of Goddard’s will were his only child, his daughter Elizabeth, and Vincent, the young son of his brother Richard, who was promised the lands at Woolhampton. He also left £4 to Willard Millard and his congregation, who otherwise remain unidentified. Goddard’s father and mother both survived him.26PROB11/271/362. His widow subsequently married Jethro Tull of Cholsey (d.1691), great-uncle of the agricultural reformer of the same name.27Hidden, ‘Jethro Tull’, 28, 30-1. In 1671 a marriage between Goddard’s daughter Elizabeth and Samuel Whitelocke, son of Bulstrode Whitelocke*, was considered, but the negotiations between the two families came to nothing. Whitelocke at that point described Mary Tull as a ‘professor of religion’.28Whitelocke, Diary, 776, 780. Goddard’s three brothers died between 1661 and 1683 and in his will Richard, who had continued to live at Reading, confirmed the bequest involving the Woolhampton properties.29PROB11/307/157; PROB11/317/232; PROB11/374/102. It is most likely that Vincent was the only member of the family ever to sit in Parliament.