George Godfrey was born on June 4, 1805 to Richard, an agricultural labourer and local Volunteer Force member, and Anne (neé Bird), a straw plait maker, later laundress of Woodman’s Yard, Watford. The yard’s entrance at 195 High Street, diagonally opposite Watford Museum, was a medieval wagonway that led to a cluster of terraced houses, now commemorated in name only by Woodman’s House.

George’s birth was on King George III’s 67th birthday. Possibly named after the king, he was baptised at St Mary’s Church where his parents married in 1801. His chances of an education were negligible until his mother took in a lodger; a gentleman’s gardener who advised her of the importance of schooling. Thus, when George was three, he entered a small school run by Mrs Tookey, an elderly neighbour. He was subsequently enrolled in a schoolhouse on the High Street on the site of the old entrance gates to St Mary’s Vicarage.

Next, George attended a private boys’ school adjacent to his home which offered a ‘superior middle-class’ education. He must have been a promising student as, in lieu of weekly fees, he cleaned the schoolroom and lit fires. The schoolmaster was John Adcock, a Baptist.

Watford Observer: Woodman's Yard. Image: 'Watford, A Pictorial Record', the Festival of Britain Committee of the Borough of Watford, 1951Woodman's Yard. Image: 'Watford, A Pictorial Record', the Festival of Britain Committee of the Borough of Watford, 1951

George had a number of youthful escapades: falling into a cesspool in Woodman’s Yard; falling through ice in Watford’s deep ‘upper pond’, filled in several decades later; nearly drowning in the river Colne; and coaxing a local brewer’s irascible donkey from Watford to Hemel Hempstead.

Unlike his education, George’s employment proved unsteady. Beginning with a local turner’s shop at 3/6d (18p) a week, he then assisted a travelling brush maker in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire before working in a ‘doctor’s shop’ for 7/- (35p) a week and a grocer’s shop. After becoming unemployed, he took the stagecoach to London with £1 in his pocket, but was chased and soon returned to Watford. He became a servant in Rickmansworth, held several positions as footman – the last in London – and finally worked in a London cheesemongers and grocer’s shop.

Watford Observer: Cover of the 'Life of George Godfrey, Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London, Showing his Career from Childhood to the 77th Year of his Age' 1882. Image courtesy of the Bodleian LibraryCover of the 'Life of George Godfrey, Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London, Showing his Career from Childhood to the 77th Year of his Age' 1882. Image courtesy of the Bodleian Library

George’s life turned around at 20 years of age when he enlisted in the 13th Regiment of Foot (1st Somersetshire). After a period in Chatham, he transferred to Taunton where the regiment was raised. He found his feet and significant responsibility and was soon earning 2/4d (12p) daily marching pay. In August 1828, he sailed for Calcutta on the teak transport ship Moffatt. For 18 years his former schoolmaster, John Adcock, wrote letters to him on behalf of his mother, which proved a ‘great comfort’.

Whilst in Agra in 1835, George married East Indies-born Mary Ann Nichols, widow of Lance Sergeant Henry Nichols, another Watfordian. After Agra, the regiment marched over 200 miles to Kernal, eastern India. George’s promotion from Private to Corporal followed, as did severe hardships on a gruelling march to Kabul as part of the first brigade of the Army of the Indus.

They marched through passes; halted at Kandahar’s walled city; took Grishk, a small fort 60 miles distant near the Helmand River, crossing on rafts made from bamboo and rum casks; and stormed Ghazni fortress on the march to Kabul. Food was rationed, water was scarce and many died from pneumonia and diarrhoea. In 1842, after the First Afghan War, seven marches through the Khyber Pass took them into the Punjab and the Himalayas.

Promoted to Colour Sergeant by 1842, George remained when his regiment returned to England in 1843, exchanging with a Colour Sergeant in the 9th Regiment of Foot (East Norfolk). After further battles, he ended his overseas service with numerous medals and clasps.

He finally left India on December 31, 1846 on HMS Southampton as Acting Sergeant Major, after leading 300 invalids on a march to Calcutta. On his return, he took Mary Ann to Watford to meet his aged parents.

Watford Observer: View to High Street from Woodman's Yard, 1977View to High Street from Woodman's Yard, 1977

After a period as Staff Sergeant at London’s Regents Park Barracks, George’s distinguished service led to his appointment on October 2, 1855, as Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. He and Mary Ann were provided with an apartment in the Tower, a good salary and a house servant. In 1866, after Mary Ann’s death, George married Caroline Morgan (neé Aylin) in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, the Tower’s parish church.

In 1882, S.W. Partridge & Co. of London published his 64-page ‘Life of George Godfrey, Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London, Showing his Career from Childhood to the 77th Year of his Age’. Priced 1/- (5p) from the publishers or the Tower of London’s Middle Tower, George hoped that his memoirs would ‘afford amusement, instruction or information’. He would be immensely proud that his book is still available today and considered by scholars to be of cultural importance.

Chelsea Pensioner George Godfrey died at 82 and was buried in the City of London & Tower Hamlet Cemetery.

With thanks to Charles Ough, Bodleian Library; Charles Griffin, The British Empire; and Charles J. Doe, Curiosmith.

  • Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences.