William Godwin is now far less well known than his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft and his daughter Mary Shelley.
He was a Social Philosopher and Political Journalist whose most famous book "Political Justice" was published in 1793 in the wake of the French Revolution and the wave of Republican feeling in this country at the time, the book supported Atheism, Anarchism and personal freedom.
He was born in Wisbech on the 3rd March 1756 the seventh of the thirteen children of John Godwin, dissenting Minister. In 1758 the family moved to Debenham in Suffolk were John Godwin was to be minister of the Independent Church, but the congregation there was split into two factions one of which opposed John Godwin as minister who then removed with his family to Guestwick, Norfolk in 1760. William at first trained to became a Minister his first ministry being at Ware in Hertfordshire in 1778 and then in 1780 he came to minister to the congregation in Stowmarket Independent Church which at this time was at a low ebb and had a series of ministers who did not remain long. William was unlikely to have been the person to revive the church as he was probably already having doubts about his vocation, but it was at Stowmarket that his doubts suffered the blows from which they never recovered. Little is known of his stay in the town, all he wrote of his stay in an autobiographical fragment written about 20 years later was;
"I went to reside at Stowmarket in Suffolk in my profession as a dissenting minister. The only pleasant acquaintance I had here was Mrs. Alice Munnings`s and her unfortunate son Leonard, a Captain of the Suffolk militia, and a lively, well bred and intelligent man. In 1781 there came to reside in Stowmarket Mr. Frederick Norman, deeply read in the French philosophers and a man of great reflection and acuteness. In April 1782 I quitted Stowmarket, in consequence of a dispute with my hearers on a question of church discipline. My Faith in Christianity had been shaken by the books Mr. Norman put into my hands and I was pleased in some respects with the breach which dismissed me."
Leonard Munnings and Frederic Norman were both members connected with the Independent Church, Munnings is known to have owned the Kings Arms Inn in Ipswich Street, why he is described as unfortunate I do not know. Frederick Norman (1748 - 1814) was engaged in the manufacture of linen, hemp and twine in the town.
In 1797 Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft the author of "A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women", a pioneering work on the liberation of women . However there union was short lived as Mary died 11 days after giving birth to there daughter, Mary who became the second wife of the poet Shelley and who in 1818 wrote the novel "Frankenstein".
Godwin also wrote novels and plays when his political views became unfashionable, the best known was "Caleb Williams", One of the characters in this novel was named Tyrrell, could this be a prompted by his memory of the local family who lived at Gipping Hall near Stowmarket ?