GODWIN, WILLIAM. - B. at Wisbeach on 3 March 1756, d. in London on 7 Apr. 1836. A restless spirit, after studying at the “dissenting” College of Hoxton, he was appointed pastor of the “dissenting” group at Ware. Later he became a Socinian.
His principal work is An enquiry concerning the principles of political justice (London 1793), in which there appears the extreme formulation of an “anarchic” individualism and of a rationalistic abstractness ranging from opposition to every form of pedagogy connected with government to the view of property and the marital union as stifling “freedom” (G. was also a bitter opponent of the mechanization of military life, of military castes, and of military secrecy itself). After the death of his wife, who had previously been his friend (1797), Mary Wollstonecraft (author of the Vindication of the rights of women [1792], which maintained the thesis of coeducational schooling), G. had to overcome a profound crisis. Having remarried, he became a celebrated publisher of books for children.