Fred and Augusta Goodwin and their six children were emigrating from Wiltshire. Mr and Mrs Goodwin and their family lived in Melksham and Mr Goodwin worked in nearby Trowbridge as a printing compositor. They were sailing to New York in order to travel to Niagara Falls, where Mr Goodwin's brother had settled. The family had intended to depart earlier aboard the liner New York, held up by a coal strike, but were transferred to the Titanic and the ensuing disaster claimed their lives. Sixteen year-old Lillian, fourteen year-old Charles, eleven year-old William, ten year-old Jessie, nine year-old Harold and eighteen month-old Sidney all died along with their parents. It was such an undeserved fate for them and so many other people. To many passengers in second and third-class the Titanic provided a stepping stone to another world. In the New World a new life was entirely conceivable, promising untold opportunities, employment and prosperity for those who had neither. Instead their dreams and aspirations were terminally interrupted.

A plaque, only some sixteen inches by ten inches in size, in St Michael and All Angels' Church, Melksham commemorates their loss. The plaque reads "On Sunday 14th April 1912 the S.S. Titanic on her first voyage to America with 2,207 souls on board struck an iceberg, and sank in less than 3 hours. Only 705 being saved. Among those who were drowned was a whole family from this parish, Frederick and Augusta Goodwin, with their six children, Lilian, Charles, William, Jessie, Harold, Sidney. The children were all in the Sunday School and the three elder boys in the choir of this church. "When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee"."

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