Joseph Goddard was born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England on 11 April 1840 and in 1856 was articled to his father, Henry Goddard (1792-1868) with whom he was in partnership in Leicester from 1862 to 1868. Following the death of his father, he worked alone until 1874 when he took Alfred Henry Paget (1848-1909) into partnership as Goddard & Paget. In 1889 Henry Langton Goddard (1866–1944), the second of Joseph's six children, became a partner and the practice was renamed Goddard Paget & Goddard
Joseph Goddard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1871. He died in Newton Harcourt, Leicestershire on 10 October 1900.
Projects by Goddard and his practice included Tur Langton church in Leicester (1865-66); Tintern House in Leicester (1871); Leicestershire Banking Co. headquarters in Leicester (1872-73); Melbourne Hall in Leicester (1880-81) St John the Baptist church in Leicester (1884-85); and the Thomas Cook offices in Leicester (1894).
Brandwood, Geoff and Cherry, Martin. Men of Property: the Goddards and Six Generations of Architecture. Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Arts and Records Service 1990
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 1: A-K. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001