Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Godbolt, John

by John Andrew Hamilton

GODBOLT, JOHN (d. 1648), judge, was of a family settled at Toddington, Suffolk. He was admitted a member of Barnard's Inn on 2 May, and of Gray's Inn 16 Nov., 1604, and was called to the bar by the latter inn in 1611, and was reader there in the autumn of 1627. He soon obtained a good practice, and is frequently mentioned in Croke's reports. In 1636 he became a serjeant, and was promoted to the bench of the common pleas by vote of both houses of parliament on 30 April 1647, and was also in the commission to hear chancery causes. He died at his house in High Holborn on 3 Aug. 1648. A volume of reports of cases in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I revised by him was published in 1653.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Whitelocke's Memorials, folio ed. p. 245; Parliamentary Journals; Barnard's Inn Book; Dugdale's Origines, p. 296.]

J. A. H.