Who Was Alive
William Godwin
Henry William Pickersgill, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

William Godwin

English journalist and political philosopher

Born 3 March 1756 · died 7 April 1836, aged 80

Who was alive at the same time as William Godwin?

  1. Voltaire, 1694 – 1778
  2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712 – 1778
  3. Adam Smith, 1723 – 1790
  4. Immanuel Kant, 1724 – 1804
  5. George Washington, 1732 – 1799
  6. Thomas Jefferson, 1743 – 1826
  7. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
  8. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756 – 1791
  9. William Godwin, 1756 – 1836
  10. Ludwig van Beethoven, c. 1770 – 1827
  11. Napoleon, 1769 – 1821
  12. Lord Byron, 1788 – 1824
  13. Alexander Pushkin, 1799 – 1837
  14. Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885
  15. Hans Christian Andersen, 1805 – 1875
  16. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849
  17. Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865
  18. Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882
  19. Charles Dickens, 1812 – 1870
  20. Otto von Bismarck, 1815 – 1898
  21. Karl Marx, 1818 – 1883
  22. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 – 1881
  23. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  24. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910

Drag across the timeline, or use the arrow keys, to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Dashed lines mark world events. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When William Godwin was born, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 6, George Washington was 24, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was under a year old, Voltaire was 61 and Immanuel Kant was 31.

When William Godwin died, Karl Marx was 17, Abraham Lincoln was 27, Leo Tolstoy was 7, Charles Darwin was 27 and Victor Hugo was 34.

Born during William Godwin’s lifetime: Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Victor Hugo and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Not quite contemporaries: Johann Sebastian Bach died about 6 years before William Godwin was born, Friedrich Nietzsche was born about 8 years after William Godwin died, Thomas Edison was born about 11 years after William Godwin died and Sarah Bernhardt was born about 8 years after William Godwin died.

What happened in William Godwin’s lifetime

Where William Godwin’s contemporaries were born

William Godwin is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (80 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare William Godwin

The 150 best-known contemporaries

614 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as William Godwin. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1796.

  1. Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
  2. Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
  3. Napoleon 1769 – 1821
  4. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  5. Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882
  6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832
  7. George Washington 1732 – 1799
  8. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756 – 1791
  9. Ludwig van Beethoven c. 1770 – 1827
  10. Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
  11. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  12. Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 – 1881
  13. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  14. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  15. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
  16. Alexander Pushkin 1799 – 1837
  17. Hans Christian Andersen 1805 – 1875
  18. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  19. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  20. Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826
  21. Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
  22. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
  23. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  24. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  25. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  26. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  27. Richard Wagner 1813 – 1883
  28. Jane Austen 1775 – 1817
  29. Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 – 1855
  30. Frédéric Chopin 1810 – 1849
  31. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  32. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831
  33. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  34. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  35. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  36. John Adams 1735 – 1826
  37. James Cook 1728 – 1779
  38. Francisco Goya 1746 – 1828
  39. Friedrich Schiller 1759 – 1805
  40. Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
  41. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  42. Charles Baudelaire 1821 – 1867
  43. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  44. Hokusai 1760 – 1849
  45. James Madison 1751 – 1836
  46. Honoré de Balzac 1799 – 1850
  47. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  48. Simón Bolívar 1783 – 1830
  49. Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
  50. Franz Schubert 1797 – 1828
  51. Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870
  52. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  53. Søren Kierkegaard 1813 – 1855
  54. Heinrich Heine 1797 – 1856
  55. John Quincy Adams 1767 – 1848
  56. Andrew Jackson 1767 – 1845
  57. James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
  58. William Blake 1757 – 1827
  59. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  60. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  61. James Watt 1736 – 1819
  62. Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880
  63. Ulysses S. Grant 1822 – 1885
  64. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  65. Joseph Haydn 1732 – 1809
  66. James Monroe 1758 – 1831
  67. Nikolai Gogol c. 1809 – c. 1852
  68. Lewis Carroll 1832 – 1898
  69. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
  70. Catherine the Great 1729 – 1796
  71. Ivan Turgenev 1818 – 1883
  72. Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
  73. John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
  74. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  75. Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892
  76. James A. Garfield 1831 – 1881
  77. Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
  78. Martin Van Buren 1782 – 1862
  79. John Keats 1795 – 1821
  80. Andrew Johnson 1808 – 1875
  81. Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862
  82. Zachary Taylor 1784 – 1850
  83. James Buchanan 1791 – 1868
  84. James K. Polk 1795 – 1849
  85. John Tyler 1790 – 1862
  86. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
  87. Mikhail Bakunin 1814 – 1876
  88. Alexander von Humboldt 1769 – 1859
  89. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
  90. Millard Fillmore 1800 – 1874
  91. William Henry Harrison 1773 – 1841
  92. Walter Scott 1771 – 1832
  93. Franklin Pierce 1804 – 1869
  94. Rutherford B. Hayes 1822 – 1893
  95. Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
  96. Taras Shevchenko 1814 – 1861
  97. George Eliot 1819 – 1880
  98. George Sand 1804 – 1876
  99. Stendhal 1783 – 1842
  100. James Prescott Joule 1818 – 1889
  101. Benjamin Harrison 1833 – 1901
  102. Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809
  103. Hector Berlioz 1803 – 1869
  104. Charlotte Brontë 1816 – 1855
  105. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  106. Gregor Mendel 1822 – 1884
  107. Marie Antoinette 1755 – 1793
  108. Maximilien Robespierre 1758 – 1794
  109. Joseph Fourier 1768 – 1830
  110. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780 – 1867
  111. Mary Shelley 1797 – 1851
  112. Auguste Comte 1798 – 1857
  113. Ada Lovelace 1815 – 1852
  114. Giuseppe Garibaldi 1807 – 1882
  115. Chester A. Arthur 1829 – 1886
  116. Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797
  117. Robert Schumann 1810 – 1856
  118. Emily Brontë 1818 – 1848
  119. Herman Melville 1819 – 1891
  120. Antoine Lavoisier 1743 – 1794
  121. Adam Mickiewicz 1798 – 1855
  122. Napoleon III 1808 – 1873
  123. Mikhail Lermontov 1814 – 1841
  124. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749 – 1827
  125. Franz Liszt 1811 – 1886
  126. Louis XVI 1754 – 1793
  127. Theodor Mommsen 1817 – 1903
  128. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832 – 1910
  129. Frederick the Great 1712 – 1786
  130. Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
  131. Robert Burns 1759 – 1796
  132. Felix Mendelssohn 1809 – 1847
  133. Frédéric Mistral 1830 – 1914
  134. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
  135. Giosuè Carducci 1835 – 1907
  136. Eugène Delacroix 1798 – 1863
  137. André-Marie Ampère 1775 – 1836
  138. Herbert Spencer 1820 – 1903
  139. Thomas Carlyle 1795 – 1881
  140. Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811 – 1896
  141. Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809 – 1892
  142. Pope Pius X 1835 – 1914
  143. Alessandro Volta 1745 – 1827
  144. Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804 – 1864
  145. John Ruskin 1819 – 1900
  146. Edgar Degas 1834 – 1917
  147. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 – 1882
  148. Édouard Manet 1832 – 1883
  149. Alexis de Tocqueville 1805 – 1859
  150. Pope Leo XIII 1810 – 1903