Catherine Grace Garnett was born in Glasgow on 15 December 1798. Her mother, Catherine Grace Cleveland, died in childbirth. Her father, Dr. Thomas Garnett, devastated by the loss of his wife died in 1802. Godwin and her elder sister were brought up by a friend of their mother, Mary Worboys, in the village of Barbon near Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmoreland.
