|
Captain Elizabeth Godwin
The Life Guards
by Captain J A C Hutton
The Blues and Royals
|
Captain Lizzie Godwin died on 5th September 2025, aged 28.
Lizzie was born in 1997, in Devon. Attending Exeter School, she was a high-quality sportswoman who was awarded a Scholarship to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on completion of her studies. After three years of nursing at King’s College London, which included taking an Army Reserve Commission, she started her Phase 1 Training in May 2019.
Selected for a commission in The Life Guards, then Officer Cadet Godwin was awarded the Sword of Honour, in the assessment of the Commandant, the best cadet of her intake. As a second lieutenant, Lizzie joined D Squadron, Household Cavalry Regiment, taking over command of 1 Troop in the middle of the COVID pandemic. Her time in D Squadron involved an urban overseas training exercise, DARING ROCK, in Gibraltar, a potential non-commissioned officer cadre for the Regiment, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lieutenant Godwin was posted to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in 2022, completing her kit ride in September of that year, coinciding with the death of HM Queen Elizabeth II. In her element on State Ceremonial and Public Duties, Lizzie later described participating in the State Funeral and commanding a division of The Life Guards on HM The King’s Coronation to be the greatest privilege of her life. Captain Godwin’s final role, as Second in Command of The Life Guards Squadron, was to be Officer Commanding the Household Cavalry Musical Ride, during which time she deployed to Central Asia and executed the largest deployment of the Ride in years to the World Equestrian Festival in Aachen in 2023.
Lizzie’s final posting was to the Army Training Regiment in Pirbright, as a Squadron Second in Command. Always a lover of training and developing junior soldiers (she had commanded a silver medal winning Cambrian Patrol Team while at from HCMR), she was here at her best and frequently expressed her great pride in the work she was doing with our most junior soldiers. Ever eager to push the boundaries of what could be achieved, she was due to attend selection for the Special Forces in 2026.
Captain Godwin by rank, but Lizzie to all, she was an unbelievably determined soldier, and able to defy the expectations of others time and time again. She was at her most relentlessly positive when under the greatest pressure.
Lizzie always demonstrated a truly positive intent, never for her own success but always for the success of others. |
|
