Goodwin family

Colorized photo of the Goodwin Family.

The Goodwin family was an English family traveling onboard Titanic in Third Class. Father Frederick Goodwin managed to get a job at the Niagara power plant in America with the help of his brother who had immigrated to Canada earlier and who was employed there. That's where they were headed. The whole family tragically died in the sinking of the ship. Frederick and his wife had six children; 4 sons and 2 daughters. They were: Lillian, 16; Charles, 14; William, 11; Jessie, 10; Harold, 9 and Sidney, 19 months.

Frederick Joseph Goodwin

Frederick Joseph Goodwin, the father, was born on February 1st 1870 in Bermondsey, England. He was a compositor. Mr Frederick Joseph Goodwin was born in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 1 February 1870.He was the second son of Charles Goodwin (1842-1892) and Mary Ann Tyler (b. 1840). His father, a printer and later a school caretaker, hailed from Newington, Middlesex and his mother was born in Good Easter, Essex and they were married in 1867. Frederick's known siblings were: Thomas Charles (b. 1868), Florence Emmeline Mary (b. 1872), Sidney Tyler (b. 1873), Lydia Amy (b. 1875) and Frank Osborne (b. 1877).

He decided to move to the US after his older brother Thomas Goodwin, who had left England before to look for his opportunities in the US, wrote him about the job opportunities available in Niagara, New York. Specifically a Power Plant job. It has been speculated that the famed Schoellkopf Hydroelectric Power Station (station A), due to open in 1912, would have been his employer had he lived. Plans were made for the family of eight to resettle from London to the town, money was burrowed from Thomas’s sisters, and one of their husband’s to help the family. He packed up his wife, Augusta, and their six children to prepare for the move. They booked Third Class on the SS New York out of Southampton, but due to a coal strike its passage was delayed and the Goodwin's were transferred aboard the Titanic. They boarded the Titanic in Southampton as Third Class passengers.

Not much is known about the Goodwin's activities during the voyage. Some say they were that they were separated (father and sons in bow section, mother and daughters in the stern section) but that's not very likely, since there were cabins for whole families and the bow part of the ship was only ment for single men with no children. It has been said that 9-year old Harold met and spent some time with Frank Goldsmith. Frank survived.

Augusta Goodwin

Augusta Goodwin (nèe Tyler) was born on July 14th, 1868 in Brompton, Kensington, Middlesex, England.

Titanic

The Goodwins had originally made plans to immigrate to the US aboard another ship, but due to the 1912 coal strike, the family had to move their bookings to the RMS Titanic, they boarded the ship at Southampton as Third Class passengers (ticket number 2144, costing £46, s18).

When the ship hit the iceberg and sank, it was unknown what Augusta was doing that night, however she perished in the sinking, along with the entire Goodwin family, whose bodies (except for Sidney’s) wouldn’t be recovered. One of the first bodies recovered by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett was of that of a small fair haired boy. The sailors involved in the expedition were so moved that when no relative came forward to claim the child, they personally escorted the child's coffin to Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax and paid for a large monument in memory of the "unknown child". (His was the only burial service that day on 4 May 1912).

The identity of the child remained a mystery for years, with initial speculation identifying him as either Gösta Pålsson or Eugene Rice. In 2002 an American PBS television series identified the boy as Finnish passenger Eino Viljami Panula by means of DNA testing from a bone fragment. Later, however, in 2008 improved DNA analysis by Canadian researchers at Lakehead University soon positively matched the remains to surviving family, proving that the child was indeed Sidney Goodwin.

Sources

1. _{'Titanic' ©1996 (second print, 1998) Edward P. De Groot}

External Links

• Genealogy of the Goodwin Family