Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

His birth was registered in Orsett which registration district covered Grays in those days.

Births Sep 1880   GODDEN William John Orsett 4a 261
 

He was 36 and the son of the late William Lucas Godden and Margaret Ann Godden [nee Reay].His parents married in South Shields, a coastal town at the mouth of the River Tyne, England, about 3.7 miles downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne. Historically, it was  in County Durham, On the 1910 census he is shown as having been born in Grays and that he was 20 years old and the eldest of four children. His father had died, aged 51 in 1900.William was employed as a cleaner of railway carriages. He had lived in Tilbury until about 1907 when he went to the West Australia gold mines.In1914 he enlisted in the A.I.F. He was wounded at Gallipoli, then served in Egypt before proceeding to France in May 1916.

He was killed in action during the assault by the 48th Bn. Australian Infantry, A.I.F. upon the Pozieres Plateau.

The Grays and Tilbury Gazette of 4th August 1917, a year after his death, records that his mother, of 1 Montreal Road, Tilbury had received news that he was now officially reported as dead, having previously been reported as wounded and missing.

In the United Kingdom, he is commemorated on the Tilbury War Memorial in Civic Square, Tilbury, Essex and on the war memorial in St John’s church, Dock Road, Tilbury.