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Excerpt from Blood Sweat and Fears: Medical Practitioners and Medical Students of South Australian who Served in World War 1. Courtesy of the Authors

Kirke Charles Godfrey was born in Glenelg, South Australia on 8th March 1888. He was the son of Charles George Godfrey of Glenelg and his wife Mary Elizabeth, nee Kirkpatrick. Godfrey’s father was the fourth member to join the Stock Exchange, his election had taken place on 27th January 1891. His father was also a fine opening bat and a notable cricketer in the eighties. He played in several international games. Godfrey attended St Peter’s College in 1906 and studied medicine at the University of Adelaide graduating in May 1914.

Godfrey enlisted in the AIF and was commissioned on 1st May 1915 and allocated to 7FdAmb. He was single, aged 27 years of Althorpe Place, Glenelg with his father of the same address named as his next of kin. He sailed the same month. On arrival in Egypt he was transferred to 2 AGH and sent to Mena Hospital. He did not go to Gallipoli with the rest of his unit. He was posted to 6 FdAmb in February 1916 and went to France with this unit in March 1916. During the Battle of Pozières in August, Godfrey was gassed and evacuated to 4 LGH at Denmark Hill, London. As a result of this he became asthmatic, and was sent to No 2 Command Depot at Weymouth to await return to Australia for convalescence. He was taken off strength on the 12th November 1916 and sailed from Portland for Australia. Back in Australia he was passed as fit for Home Service only. He had served 624 days of which 579 were overseas. His appointment in the AIF was terminated on the 7th February 1917. Godfrey was issued with the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Godfrey married Beatrice Adelaide Gepp in the St Peter’s College Chapel on 6th April 1918. She was the youngest daughter of the late Thomas Gepp, S.M., and Mrs. Gepp, of 'Hockky,' Kensington Gardens. He remained in South Australia in the near country of Mt Pleasant and Clare where he became a Justice of the Peace in January 1921.  Godfrey eventually moved to Perth WA in the 1930s. Godfrey made a round trip to Singapore from Fremantle as ship’s surgeon on board the Centaur in 1933. This ship’s name became renowned in 1943 when as 2/3 AHS she was sunk off Point Danger Queensland by a Japanese submarine. Godfrey’s son Sgt David Kirke Godfrey, serving with 6 SQN RAAF as an air gunner, was shot down and killed over New Guinea in 1942. Godfrey became an anaesthetist, and joined the staff of Perth Public Hospital with his rooms in 222 St George’s Tce and at 92 Thomas St, West Perth. He was elected to Honorary Membership of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists in 1961, recognising him as a pioneer specialist anaesthetist in Western Australia and a past president of the WA section of the society. Kirke Charles Godfrey died on the 13th November 1978.

Photo, AWM.6060

The Daily Herald Adelaide 18 Dec 1914

The Mail Adelaide 24 November 1917

The Mirror Perth 15 July 1939

Ancestry.com