In about 1660, Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz, an apothecary from Hamburg in Germany, was invited to England by Sir Robert Boyle to assist in his laboratories and in the manufacture of chemicals, including the first phosphorus made in England. He dropped the name Hanckwitz when he settled in London, and had his own laboratory built at the corner of Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, where he continued to make significant developments in chemistry.

Ambrose Godfrey died in 1741. He left three sons, Boyle (named after Sir Robert), Ambrose and John. The son Ambrose was the inventor. He and his brother John took over the chemicals business, and also supplied galenicals to apothecaries. Ambrose wrote The Compleat Course of Chymistry in 1744, but it was never published (a copy exists in the museum's collections). Although they went bankrupt in 1746, Ambrose started the business up again in partnership with his nephew, a third Ambrose Godfrey.

However, he also invented a fire extinguisher. It worked by suffocating the fire and therefore putting it out, an idea credited to a Zachary Greyl. A miniature wooden barrel was filled with fire-extinguishing material. Then gunpowder was inserted in a pewter sphere at the centre of the centre of the barrel, and fitted with a fuse, pipe and guides to the top. When the fuse was fired, the explosion forced the fire upwards. It was first tested on Hampstead Heath in 1723. A report about a spate of fires in London in 1727 said:
"I hear that the famous machines or Fire Watches, invented by Mr Godfrey the great Chymist.displayed their wonderful effects, and prevented the progress of that furious element [the fire]."
However, Godfrey's extinguisher appears only to have been used for a few years.

Godfrey died in 1756 and the business was wholly taken over by his nephew. By the nephew's death in 1797, the firm had been bought out by Charles Gomond Cooke, and became Godfrey and Cooke. A century later that business had lost some of its manufacturing side, and had moved to Conduit Street in the west end of London. The pharmacy then moved to the Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street, but closed and the stock was sold off in 1915. Savory and Moore of Bond Street acquired the good will of the business.