Goddard, William

William Goddard (1825-1907), tenth chancellor of the University, was born at Potowomut Neck in Warwick on Christmas Day in 1825, the son of William Giles Goddard and Charlotte Rhoda Ives. After graduation from Brown University in 1846, he went to Europe, and during the Revolution of 1848 he carried secret dispatches from Paris to Rome. He studied law, but did not practice. He was elected to the Common Council from the Second Ward in 1852 and was reelected three more times. In 1857 he was named a trustee of Brown University. During the Civil War he was a major in the First Rhode Island Regiment under Burnside and a colonel and aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor Sprague. He was present at the Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Fredericksburg. He retired from military service in 1862. In business, he was a member of the firm of Brown and Ives and of Goddard Brothers, manufacturers of cotton goods. From 1875 to 1900 he was president of the Providence Institution for Savings, a job for which he received no salary. He was Chancellor of Brown from 1888 until his death in Providence on September 20, 1907.