Sidney Leslie Goodwin

Sidney Leslie Goodwin (9 September 1910 – 15 April 1912) was a 19-month-old English boy who died during the sinking of the RMS Titanic. His unidentified body was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett after the sinking, and for decades was referred to as The Unknown Child. His headstone read "Our Babe". In 2008, mitochondrial DNA testing by the Armed Forces lab revealed his identity. Baby Goodwin is the only member of his family whose body has been recovered and subsequently identified.

Early life

The Goodwin family. From left to right: William, Frederick, Charles, Lillian, Augusta, Jessie. At the center is Harold. Sidney is not present.

Sidney was born on 9 September 1910 in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. He was the youngest child born to Frederick Joseph and Augusta (née Tyler) Goodwin. Sidney had five older siblings - Lillian, Charles, William, Jessie, and Harold.^[1]

SS New York and RMS Titanic

Frederick's brother, Thomas, had already left England and was living in Niagara Falls, New York. Thomas wrote to Frederick, telling him about the opening of a power station there. 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. Frederick, a compositor, packed up his wife and six children to prepare for the move. They booked third-class passage on the S.S. New York out of Southampton, but due to a coal strike that year the vessel's passage was delayed, and they were transferred to the RMS Titanic.^[2] They boarded the Titanic in Southampton as third-class passengers.

Not much is known about the Goodwins' activities during the voyage, except that they may have been separated by gender in opposite ends of the ship, Frederick and his older sons in the bow, and Augusta with Sidney and the girls in the stern. Harold also met and spent some time with Frank Goldsmith, who survived.

By the time the Goodwins received a warning about the collision with the iceberg, all the lifeboats had been launched. The entire family perished in the sinking.

In his book, The Night Lives On, historian Walter Lord devoted a chapter ("What Happened to the Goodwins?") to the family, using the fact that they were English to challenge the White Star Line's implication that such high numbers of third-class passengers perished because they could not understand the English language.^[3]

The unknown child

The grave of Sidney Goodwin in Fairview Cemetery, in the winter.

The body of a fair-haired toddler was the fourth pulled from the ocean by the recovery ship CS Mackay-Bennett, on 17 April 1912. The description read:

NO. 4 - MALE - ESTIMATED AGE, 2 - HAIR, FAIR.

CLOTHING - Grey coat with fur on collar and cuffs; brown serge frock; petticoat; flannel garment; pink woolen singlet; brown shoes and stockings.

No marks whatever.

PROBABLY THIRD CLASS^[4]

The sailors aboard the Mackay-Bennett, who were very shocked by the discovery of the unknown boy's body, paid for a monument, and he was buried on 4 May 1912 with a copper pendant placed in his coffin by recovery sailors that read "The Unknown Child".^[5] Before 2002 (when he was first, though mistakenly, identified through DNA testing), he was known simply as "The Unknown Child". His body, identified as that of a child around two years old, was initially believed to be that of either a two-year-old Swedish boy, Gösta Pålsson; or a two-year-old Irish boy, Eugene Rice, two other fair-haired toddlers who perished in the sinking.^[6]

The grave is usually covered with stuffed animals and children's toys.

Identification and re-identification

The American PBS television series Secrets of the Dead initially identified the body as Eino Viljami Panula, a 13-month-old Finnish baby, based on DNA testing of three teeth and a small, weathered bone.^[7] However, with improved DNA testing available in 2008, Canadian researchers at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay tested the child's HVS1, a type of mitochondrial DNA molecule, and it did not match the Panula family.^[8] DNA extracted from the exhumed remains and DNA provided by a surviving maternal relative helped positively match the remains to Sidney, and the re-identification was announced on 30 July 2008.^[7][9]

Although the bodies of two other children, both older boys, were recovered, it was Sidney who came to be a symbol of all the children lost in the sinking. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a marker was recently added to the memorial with his name and dates of birth and death.^[10] A pair of his shoes were donated to Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in 2002 by the descendants of a Halifax police officer who guarded the bodies and clothing of Titanic victims.

Further reading

• Geller, Judith B. (1998). Titanic: Women and Children First (1st ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. 

References

External links

• "Titanic Passengers: The Goodwins". Encyclopedia Titanica. 
• "Shoes of the Unknown Child". museum.gov.ns.ca. 
• "The Grave Of The Unknown Child". titanic-titanic.com.