Godfrey Elton, first Baron Elton of Headington was born in the rectory at Sherington, Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire on 29 March 1892.

He was the eldest child of Edward Fiennes Elton (born in Wheatley in 1861, the son of the Revd Edward Elton, the Vicar there) and Violet Hylda Fletcher (born in Oxford in 1867, the daughter of the Revd Carteret John Halford Fletcher, Rector of Carfax Church).

Godfrey's parents were married at Ss Philip & James Church in Oxford on 22 December 1887 and initially settled in north Oxford. Their eldest child Dorothy Fiennes Elton was born there in 1889, probably at 111 Woodstock Road.

By the time of the 1891 census. Godfrey's father had been appointed assistant schoolmaster at Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire and was living in Church Street there with his wife Violet and their baby daughter Dorothy, and his sister-in-law Margaret Fletcher, who was an artist. Baby Dorothy died on 21 May 1891 at the age of 1 year and 11 months at a house in Oxford called “Earl's Croome” , and her death was announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal. Her funeral was held in St Martin's Church at Carfax on 23 May 1891, with her grandfather, the Rector there, taking the service.

Godfrey was born at Newport Pagnell ten months after his sister's death, and his three younger siblings were born in Crowthorne: Maurice Edward (4 March 1894), Angela (1900), and Hubert (1902). Maurice died soon after his birth.

The 1901 census shows Godfrey (9) living near Crowthorne Church with his parents and his sister Angela (seven months), plus a cook, children's nurse, and housemaid.

Godfrey was educated at Rugby School. In April 1911 he was one of the 52 boys suffering from an epidemic of rose-rash who spent census night as patients in the school sanatorium at 13 Horton Crescent in Rugby. His family were then still living at Crowthorne.

In 1913 Godfrey then went up to Balliol College, Oxford. He obtained a first in classical honour moderations, and then went on to read History. He never took his finals, however, as when the First World War broke out he immediately volunteered to serve. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Hampshire Regiment and then Captain, serving in India and Mesopotamia. In 1915 he was wounded at the Siege of Kut-el-Amara, and was a prisoner of war in Turkey from 1916 to 1918.

He was none the less awarded his Bachelor of Arts degree in March 1919, and on 2 July 1919 it was announced in The Times that Elton, described as a Domus exhibitioner of Balliol, had been nominated by The Queen's College, Oxford for election in the coming Michaelmas Term to an official fellowship and lectureship in Modern History, and he was duly elected.

Around this time he joined the Labour Party, and in a letter to The Times on 20 November 1919 he argued that “the division between the middle and its fellow classes is no longer horizontal but vertical, a division which may cut through social and, to a more limited extent, through purely financial distinctions of any kind whatsoever.”

The 1921 census shows Elton (29), described as a Fellow & Lecturer of The Queen's College in Oxford, living staying at Burleigh Court, Brimscombe, Gloucestershire with his parents and siblings Angela and Hubert and their five servants (a cook, parlourmaid, two housemaids, and a kitchenmaid).

On 17 August 1921 in Oslo, Norway, Godfrey Elton married Johanne Mathilde Baumann Hartmann, known as Dédi, the daughter of Gustav Hartmann of Kristiania in Oslo. They had three children:

• Audrey Hartmann Elton (born in Oxford in 1922)
• Rosemary Hartmann Elton (born in Oxford in 1925)
• Rodney Elton (born in Headington on 2 March 1930).

Elton stood for Parliament as the Labour candidate for for Thornbury in Gloucestershire in both 1924 and 1929, but failed to get elected.

Elton's father died at Burleigh Court, near Stroud, Gloucestershire on 10 November 1925. His effects came to £6,930 7s. 2d.

Greenways at 40 Osler Road (then called Manor Road) was designed by Philip D. Hepworth and built in the garden of White Lodge for Godfrey & Johanne Elton, who moved in during 1928. Their son Rodney attended Miss Hammersley's School at Sandy Lodge nearby.

In 1932 Elton was appointed Honorary Political Secretary of the National Labour Club. He was a strong admirer of Ramsay MacDonald (Labour Prime Minister 1929–1935) and happened to tutor his son Malcolm, who was up at Queen's. When in 1934 Elton was created Baron Elton of Headington, the historian Lewis Namier said, “In the eighteenth century peers made their tutors under-secretaries; in the twentieth under-secretaries make their tutors peers.”

In 1939 Lord Elton gave up his fellowship at The Queen's College and became secretary of the Rhodes Trust, a position he held for twenty years.

Lord Elton was President of Headington United until he moved away from Osler Road to Adderbury near Banbury in about 1945.

Lord Elton died at the Dower House in Sutton Bonington, Nottinghamshire at the age of 81 on 18 April 1973. His effects came to £12,148.

His only son Rodney Elton succeeded him in 1973 as the Second Baron Elton of Headington.

His widow, the dowager Lady Elton, died at The Mount, Adderbury on 1 January 1977. Her effects came to £116,268.

There is a much fuller entry on Baron Elton in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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Wikipedia: Godfrey Elton