Joseph Godber
British politician (1914-1980)
Joseph Bradshaw Godber, Baron Godber of Willington, (17 March 1914 – 25 August 1980) was a British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Grantham from 1951 to 1979 and held ministerial posts in the governments of Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, and Edward Heath.
Background
Godber was born in Bedford. He was educated at Bedford School, between 1922 and 1931, and became a nurseryman. He became chairman of the county glasshouse section of the National Farmers Union and of the publicity and parliamentary committee. He was a member of the Tomato and Cucumber Marketing Board.
Political career
Godber was a Bedfordshire County Councillor from 1946 until 1952. He was elected Member of Parliament for Grantham in 1951, a seat he held until 1979. He served under Harold Macmillan as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1957 to 1960, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1960 to 1961, as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1961 to 1963 and as Secretary of State for War in 1963, under Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Minister of Labour from 1963 to 1964 and under Edward Heath as Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1970 to 1972 and as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1972 to 1974. Godber was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1963 and in 1979 he was made a life peer as Baron Godber of Willington, of Willington in the County of Bedfordshire.
“Joseph Godber” enters the record as british politician (1914-1980). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joseph, Godber and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Joseph Godber” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Joseph, Godber and British provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6283488. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1980, 1951 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Godber” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.