1308 Godfrey Benson

Constituency  : Woodstock  1892-5

Godfrey  took  Woodstock  from  the  Tories  who  complained  at  a  placard  which  they  said  misled  the  agricultural  labourers. He  had  contested  the  by-election  in  1891.

Godfrey  was  a  barrister's  son  educated  at  Winchester  and  Oxford. He  became  a  lecturer  in  philosophy.

Godfrey  described  himself  as  an  "extreme"  Home  Ruler. He  became  secretary  to  the  Minister  of  Agriculture.

Godfrey  was  defeated  in  1895.

Godfrey  and  his  wife  were  opposed  to  female  suffrage.

Godfrey  was  Mayor  of  Lichfield   between  1909  and  1911. In  the  latter  year  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Charnwood.

Godfrey  was  a  prolific  writer  and  produced  biographies  of  Lincoln  and  Theodore  Roosevelt.

Godfrey  was  the  first  President  of  the  National  Institute  for  the  Deaf  from  1924  to  1935.

He  died  in  1945  aged  80.