A merchant in the Portugal and Brazil trade with literary and antiquarian tastes. He assembled an impressive collection of books and manuscripts on Brazil and Southey thanked Gooden for lending him ‘the Life of F. Joam d’Almeida, among other books, and a manuscript Apology for the Jesuits in Paraguay and Maranham, of great importance’; see Southey’s History of Brazil, 3 vols (London, 1810–1819), II, p. [v].